Mark Erelli
One thing about Mark Erelli: he leaves no doubt regarding his stance on the largest issues of our day. Whether addressing the war in Iraq, the nation’s widening economic divide, or the small-mindedness of right-wing Bible-thumpers, the veteran singer-songwriter lays it out with sparkling clarity and little regard for analogy.
In Erelli’s case, that’s an altogether good thing. Delivered, his seventh album, brims with eloquent musings on the tattered state of the American spirit. The opening track, “Hope Dies Last”, sets the tone. “In the eyes of the president, citizens are enemies,” Erelli sings, in a voice just this side of resigned. “He’d rather talk to Jesus than to anyone who disagrees.”
Erelli avoids histrionics, preferring make his points in subtle ways. On “Volunteers”, his voice backed by only a plucked banjo, he tells the story of a Baghdad-stationed National Guardsman with a sublime empathy that brings to mind Jimmy Webb’s “Galveston”. Likewise, on “Five Beer Moon”, he offers without being maudlin a snapshot portrait of a divorced father mulling over his dead-end, blue-collar plight.
Other high points include “Shadowland”, another soldier-song done in a style reminiscent of vintage R.E.M., and “Once”, which channels Paul Simon at Simon’s songwriterly best. Best of all is “Abraham”, a fervent prayer for better times that sends the album off on a powerful, hymnlike note.