Many of King's strengths are apparent here, including excellent acoustic guitar work, good vocals, and flashes of strong songwriting. On the whole, however, Sticks and Stones has too many weaknesses to be considered a great album. The arrangements and production on King's more upbeat songs often hinder good material (particularly on the bluesy "Persuasions," which falls apart with misplaced horn breaks), while the quieter songs sound better (particularly King's guitar work) but are generally fairly weak. King avoids clichés in his lyrics, but this too often results in awkward phrasing that doesn't flow. An exception is "Life on the Vine," perhaps the one song on the album that is equally strong in its writing, arrangement, production and performance, and which demonstrates that King does have the ability to pull everything together into a great package. Despite the problems, though, King's musicianship and promise are readily apparent; listeners can tell he will improve with time. ~ Marc Castellani