Grant-Lee Phillips
Virginia Creeper
Label:  Zoe Records 
Date:  2/24/2004
Length:  0:00
Format:  CD
Genre:  Rock; Alternative
  Category:  rock
    Track Listing:
      1.  
      Mona Lisa    
      2.  
      Walking Memory    
      3.  
      Lily-A-Passion    
      4.  
      Dirty Secret    
      5.  
      Always Friends    
      6.  
      Calamity Jane    
      7.  
      Josephine Of The Swamps    
      8.  
      Far End Of The Night    
      9.  
      Susanna Little    
      10.  
      Wish I Knew    
      11.  
      Hickory Wind    
    Additional info: | top

      With his third solo release since dissolving Grant Lee Buffalo, one of roots rock's great also-rans, Phillips relishes the relative advantages of the singer-songwriter style. He sketches characters with nuance, tosses off epigrammatic love songs, dives into painterly rural reveries, traces an obscure Southern myth while banging on a banjo, and offers bittersweet praise to friendship. His voice and melodic knack are all the continuity he needs. That voice, a grainy croon distilled from blue-eyed soul and California country cool, remains a prime attraction. If the tasteful, lissome country-folk backing of steel guitar, fiddle, piano, drums, and harmony vocals from Cindy Wasserman is a tad shy of adventurous, the sound suits the ripe, romantic, and dreamy mood of Phillips's songs. --Roy Kasten