Mention the name Ryan in Alt.Country circles and inevitably ears prick up at the hint of what the genre's golden boy, Ryan Adams is involved in now. However, for Austin-based singer/ songwriter JEFF KLEIN, it's another Ryan - producer and kindred spirit Matthew Ryan - who's helped him shape a pretty bloody terrific (second) album in "Everybody Loves A Winner".
Klein insists "ELAW" is successful because Ryan introduced an atmosphere where "no idea was a silly idea" at the sessions and "there are a lot of cool sounds on this record that just came out of us fucking around."
Well, amen to the God of fucking around, then, because this apparently loose process has glued together an album that shivers with emotional goose pimples and sets Jeff Klein up as another distinctive talent in a genre already teeming with mavericks jostling for space.
One things needs to be established quickly, though: you'll have noticed "ELAW" is on the One Little Indian label and that Klein has recently toured extensively with labelmate Jesse Malin. Well, put simply, DO NOT expect another "Fine Art Of Self-Destruction". Indeed, "Everybody Loves A Winner" is another pool of circling sharks altogether.
A few seconds of opening track "Everything Is Alright" make this abundantly clear. Over a deceptively simple, Christmas-sy paino loop, Klein's sleepy, defeated vocals ("You've been writing out your suicide note since you were 13") immediately set him apart, though this writer can detect a hint of Chris Mills at his most wracked.
"ELAW" packs a heavyweight emotional punch at all times. It can rock in an overheated, exasperated kinda way, like on "California", where Klein makes reaching the Golden State sound more like grasping for the jaws of Hell rather than relaxing in Utopia; or "Another Breakdown", where the strident guitars and background harmonies couch a frightening lyric where Klein sings: "I wish they'd come and put me away." But these brash musical interludes are merely mirages in a desert of absolute personal disarray.
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A major plus point is that Klein and Ryan remember to ally great, haunting tunes with Klein's almost wincingly painful observations. Both "Five Good Reasons" and - especially - "Keep It (Like A Secret)" revel in their semi-acoustic (nearly) pop surroundings, and are further buoyed up by Patti Griffin's breathy backing vocals.
Klein truly excels, however, when he slows it right down and seriously turns the screw. Indeed, most of "ELAW"S second half is slow, scarily contemplative and framed by acoustic picking. Here, Klein's songs draw comparisons with, say, Mark Eitzel and (especially) Mark Kozelek. Sometimes, the pretty(ish) musical motifs sweeten the pill as on the closing "Take The Wheel", but songs like the numb lilt of "Goodbye" and the remorelessly sad "Steady Wins" - which is more than a little Kozelekian in its' dissecton of a relationship breakdown - add a whole new dimension to terms like 'funereal.'
Thanks to the likes of predominantly unsung mavericks like Townes Van Zandt, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the Lone Star state has always promoted grittily affecting performers, but in Jeff Klein they can welcome a new breed of Texan troubadour. A curious and sometimes uneasy melange of provocative melodies allied to grimly tangible lyrics it may be, but "Everybody Loves A Winner" nonetheless adds up to a superb album. Those of you with the stomach for it will soon develop a morbid fascination.
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