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EZT: Goodbye Little Doll
After a few runs-through with EZT's Goodbye Little Doll, there's no trouble convincing myself that this album pound for pound is one of the best I've reviewed in many months. Not every song compels me to listen over and over, but Colin Michael Gagon and his band have produced a slow, quiet collection of songs that both challenge and usually capture the listener. As a whole, this release evokes a relaxed, darkly lit Lou Reed/Neil Young style in a way that subtly crafts its own approach. Much like the cover of REM's melancholic masterpiece, Murmurwith its kudzu faintly lit in the southern moonlightthe cover of Goodbye Little Doll sets the tone of the album with a lone tree, barely lit in the darkness. A scene made more arresting by the rich, dark features of the lone subject. The paradox of darkness and beauty is a perfect metaphor for what's found inside this release. The title track, a ditty of under three minutes, is a good place to start. With an easy, low back beat and guitar strum, vaguely reminiscent of a Chris Isaak number, Colin Gagon's voice adds tremendous value and originality to a sound one swears hes heard before. "The Bay Shallows," the first track, also under three minutes, puts an accordion and synthesizer in an otherwise traditional-style mix to come up with something refreshing, yetagainfamiliar. Like any good band, the familiarity is elusive and hard to pin down, because it suggests all, yet duplicates none. All I can say is that it's a nod to an earlier time. It's the mystery of its originality that makes gems like this song's chorus stick with you long after the song is over. To me, another unique aspect of this CD is the Sarabeth Tucek's backup singing. She sparingly flits in and out of songs like Donna Jean Godchaux in an old Grateful Dead record. Tucek is soft and unassuming, yet comforting when you hear her re-emerge in one track from the dark, melodic corner of another. What's memorable about this album vastly outshines what I find least accessible and most challenging (songs like "New River" for example, which didn't strike me). But, hey, in my book, even the Beatles'White Album or Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand had thorns like those, and I loved them anyway.
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