Unlike his old bands, the hard pop
Poster Children or the dreamy
the Moon Seven Times,
Brendan Gamble's solo debut is a good old-fashioned piece of '70s-style singer/songwriter mopery, closer in mood to
Joni Mitchell's
Blue than
Nick Drake's
Pink Moon, though sharing similarities with both. All 13 of these songs were written during the breakup of
Gamble's marriage to his former partner in
the Moon Seven Times, Lynn Canfield, and lyrically, they're exactly the mixture of recrimination, resignation, sadness, black humor, and anger that usually accompanies the breakup of a relationship. (Not since
Til Tuesday's
Everything's Different Now has a full album examined a failed relationship so obsessively without sounding mawkish or self-pitying.) The production, by Trina Shoemaker (
Kristin Hersh,
Victoria Williams), is stripped down without being barebones minimalism;
Gamble's acoustic guitar and fragile voice are at the center of the songs, but
Gamble and Shoemaker add just enough extra instrumentation (bass, keyboards, lap steel, occasional drums, and on the memorable title track, a gorgeous cornet solo) to keep the songs from sounding too much alike. Pretty though most of it is,
Heartless Moon isn't always an easy listen, but fans of sensitive-guy pop, from
James Taylor and
Jackson Browne to
Josh Rouse and
Red House Painters, will love it. ~ Stewart Mason