Shawn Mullins' latest album, Honeydew, picks up where his last left off: with 12 songs that alternate between simplistic folky narrative tunes and romping blues songs. His cast of characters is colorful and well-represented. Indeed, it's when he focuses most on the characters that his songs resound. When he turns to more introspective, sentimental tunes, they start to feel like songs we've all heard before.
Highlights
Among Mullins' characters on Honeydew are Homeless Joe, to whom he dedicates one of the most fun blues tunes on the record. Another of the album's stellar personal profiles comes in the form of "A Fraction of a Man," (Download from Amazon) which tells the sad story of a man named Harry and his fractured love life. "Ballad of Kathryn Johnston" is possibly the strongest song on the disc, ending with the album's strongest line: "Everything changed forever and everything stayed the same on the night Miss Johnston died."The stories of these everday characters capture some of Mullins' finest, most poetic moments. He has a knack for seeing into the lives of others, and the album is well-served by including plenty of these narrative tunes.
Lowlights and Bottom Lines
One qualm with Honeydew and Mullins's previous work is that he tends to play it safe so often. The Bob Schneider-esque "Home" (Download from Amazon) is a good example. It's a nice enough observational storyline with a memorable hook and melody. But, Mullins drops it with lines like, "[She] saw right through all the b.s. in everything." One can't help but wonder what's holding him back from just using the word to which he referred. There's no sense in cursing for cursing's sake, but it's better to either go with the curse word, or choose something else (crap, ugliness, trash?). Instead, that's the line that loses the song's grit.Otherwise, the disc is mostly devoid of lowlights. It's a nice collection of songs that span a wide variety of styles. Mullins is a gifted musician, and his songs are well-served this time around.
