At first glance,
Josh Small looks like one more suburban kid who grew a beard, threw on a flannel shirt, learned a few bottleneck guitar licks, and set out to present himself as the real deal. The thing is, it seems that
Small is the real deal, for the most part anyway. He comes from a long line of Southern itinerant musicians, and his spare and sometimes ragged acoustic-based roots rock is actually steeped in the sounds he grew up on. That's not to say that there isn't an occasional whiff of affectation on his debut album -- the banjo chords on "Say Hello" could have been handled better by an instrument with more strings, and the lyrics to "Who's Foolin' You" (sample line: "If this ain't jive and that's where it's at") are just a bit too precious. But the songs you really notice are the ones that sneak up on you and knock you out: note in particular the gently gorgeous bottleneck guitar on "Knife in My Belly," the album-opening "Come Down" (which technically is really too long but somehow never seems like it is), the delicate and lovely "My Confessions," and the deceptively simple-sounding "Indiana," which starts out feeling loose and unfocused and slowly tightens up. Also take note of "Moses," a song that sounds like nothing special until the horns come in. Recommended. ~ Rick Anderson