Singer-song writer, Mark Huff, has been honing his talents in time honoured troubadour style for nigh on two decades now.
He hails from Las Vegas but, since 2003, has been a Nashville citizen. In music city he has struck a fruitful friendship with Alison Moorer and has been able to call upon some top session musicians to play on this album.
The ten songs collected here are committed and earnest yet somehow lack any real personality. Other artists like Lucinda Williams or Chuck Prophet who play a similar brand of alt.country/ roots-rock manage to stamp their own character on their songs in a way that Huff can't quite pull off.
Standout tracks like the bluesy Scar So Easy ("You can't break my heart cos I ain't got one") and the more rock orientated Zero Weather ("You are just a shadow that I don't even know") show a certain song craft but come across as slick and efficient rather than heartfelt.
|
Huff's laconic, slightly world-weary delivery lend the tunes an emotional detachment hat doesn't help his cause.
He has confessed to being an artist who is more at home playing to a roomful of strangers than getting the right feel in a studio. The sing-a-long Only Birds Are Free probably goes down a treat live despite but on disc I was struck only by how the song is founded on a dubious premise.
By no means a bad record but not one I'd go out of my way to recommend either.
|
