Grant Lee Buffalo

You would be hard pressed to come up with a moniker that is more American – albeit
unwieldy – than Grant Lee Buffalo, which invokes the names of the North's and the South's
Civil War generals and a time when the West was still wild. In its breadth, drama and
mythical evocation of America, Mighty Joe Moon, the band's second album, recalls Bob
Dylan's John Wesley Harding, The Band and Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps. At ti... More >

Grant Lee Phillips doesn't sing subtly enough to pine so lyrically or forcefully enough to suffer so unremittingly. That folkloric drawl may be the way he talks, but it sounds like he picked it up at the movies along with the rest of his ideas. It's pointless to suggest he stick in a few laughs because there's no chance they'll be funny. I do recommend, however, that he abandon his quest for the meaning of John Wayne Gacy. (Grade: C+)