Since his 1970s peak,
Coyne's voice has deepened and lost some of its rough edge. As a poet, his powers are pretty much undimmed; even a nominally romantic song like "The Bungalow Song" has a bit of paranoid madness creeping in at the edges. When
Coyne sticks primarily to acoustic guitar, the results are pretty good. Problems arise when the arrangements are filled out with a more generic rock band sound.
Coyne, like so many artists, is a case of "less is more"; the more "produced" cuts, with their lazily mainstream tonal qualities, sit uneasily beside stark oddities like "Fish Brain" and "Open up the Gates." The better, more passionate cuts may make this worth tracking down for serious
Coyne fans, but it's a patchy recording overall. ~ Richie Unterberger