Years of addiction tend to obscure
Grant Hart
's considerable strengths as a songwriter, a situation not helped by his erratic post-
Huesker Due
work. After 1999's
Good News for Modern Man
,
Hart
drifted away, spending some time as a musician for hire but generally existing outside the spotlight, taking a full decade to return with
Hot Wax
, his third solo album and easily his richest collection of songs to date.
hasn't abandoned the buzzing guitars that have defined much of his music since the days of
Due
, but he's certainly downplayed them, preferring to ramp up a latent baroque pop obsession and spend some quiet, intimate moments with just a keyboard or two. There's variety here, and also craft, a bracing and overdue reminder that there were two excellent songwriters in
. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine