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Album Details

• Artist: Ray Mason Band
• Album: Idiot Wisdom
• Label: Captivating
• Year of Release: 2003
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-12-17

You can almost count on a new Ray Mason Band album coming out annually. Idiot Wisdom is the third such album that I have received and each one I start feeling the same way about, ah jeez, another CD with a crappy cover. Then I realize, oh yeah, I don't mind this guy. On the cover of Idiot Wisdom it looks like the designer has just discovered the metallic filter in Photoshop for the lettering. The back cover is actually not bad but the front, wow. Anyway, let's not judge a book (CD) by it's cover. Ray Mason must be one of the most dedicated indie artists I have seen. Like I said, releasing an album a year for the past few years as well as touring pretty much all year round, makes for a tired musician. Somewhere in there Ray finds time to write new material. On Idiot Wisdom it seems that he hasn't progressed a lot. Instead he has honed the singer/songwriter style. There are some fairly impressive tracks on Idiot Wisdom like the goofy "When The Ceiling Shakes Hands With The Floor" or the under-produced "Ring-A-Ling". There still ends up being some very mediocre songs on the album like "Digging From The Same Dirt". While Mason's albums are fairly consistent, I think it might do him some good if he was to save up two to three albums worth of material and get some unbiased opinions on what songs to put on an album. He has some great songs but unfortunately they are sometimes compromised by filler.

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