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Album Details

• Artist: Slaid Cleaves
• Album: Wishbones
• Label: Philo
• Year of Release: 2004
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2004-09-02

Wow, it's hard to believe that it has already been four years since the last Slaid Cleaves album, Broke Down. This time around Slaid is a little more upbeat and has some pretty fun stories to tell. The first song I would like to talk about is "Tiger Tom Dixon's Blues", the story about a boxer and other things that men hold on to. It's a really upbeat track and one of the best Cleaves songs I have heard to date. The title track is good too. It was co-written by Ray Wylie Hubbard and has one of the slickest verse lines: "Nothing left but skin and wishbones". Then it kicks in with quite an upbeat chorus. Cleaves manages to keep away from the sound of commercial country. Instead he opts for a mix of bouncy tracks and some very fine country ballads like the waltz "Borderline". The album closes with a sing-along track called "New Year's Day", fun but probably the weakest song of the set. So throw in Slaid Cleaves with the other established Austin, TX songwriters. With Wishbones he has proven his worthiness. His voice may not be as immediately likeable as that of Steve Earle but he does have the charisma to carry it through an album of strongly penned songs.

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