Three years after his first solo album, former
Squirrel Bait frontman
Peter Searcy is back with another set of introspective, acoustic-based singer/songwriter fare.
Searcy is often compared both to
Hüsker Dü's
Bob Mould and
the Lemonheads'
Evan Dando, but on
Couch Songs his sound is really more pre-punk than post-punk. Here he plays all the instruments (which include guitar, piano, mandolin, cello, and percussion) himself and sings all the parts; this gives the songs a certain immediacy and haunting intimacy, but for the most part they draw you in and then leave you unsatisfied. "Rewind" is a subtle, lovely, and gently heartbroken ballad of romantic regret, and on "Spinning" the combination of an unpretentious string arrangement and a hooky but even less pretentious melody works beautifully. Most of the rest of the program, though, either plods along depressingly or meanders aimlessly. This is the problem with one-man shows: without someone else in the studio to call you on it when you get too self-indulgent, the temptation to lapse into solipsistic wankery can be hard to resist. Not bad, but not great. ~ Rick Anderson