Longtime
Will Oldham associate Colin Michael Gagon has released his brand of country-rock as
EZT on the
Bill Callahan-produced
Goodbye Little Doll. Gagon's songwriting has a similar gothic rambling to
Oldham's, but his arrangements are less spare. On songs like the gritty and rollicking "The Bay Shallows," or the sublimely work-a-day title track,
EZT sounds closest to the crunchy Americana of
Jason Molina's stunning
Magnolia Electric Company. But Gagon will also traffic in humorous self-deprecation -- take the upbeat and non-sensical drinking tune "Central Control," with it's toast to the red-headed girls.
Goodbye Little Doll is a truck driver's daydream, diner bathroom-wall poetry, dead-end town realism, and a Midwestern tragicomedy. ~ Charles Spano