The first thing that becomes glaringly apparent while listening to
Beaver Nelson
's
Legends of the Super Heroes
is that he's suddenly become as much a pure
pop
tunesmith in the vein of
Freedy Johnston
as he is a hard-scrabble roots man. It's most apparent throughout
"Anything Easy Left,"
but you can also sense it, for example, in the way that
"Digging a Well"
moves from standard,
classic country
intonations to an elegantly
melody line in the chorus. Then there's the swooning, piano-twinkly
"Chameleon Brain,"
or the way
Nelson
lashes his unearthly melodic smarts atop the
country
shuffle of
"Government Sanctioned Hayride."
With each album (this is his fourth)
seems to cast his uncanny talent for great tunes and literate lyrics in a different light. With
,
confirms the fact that he just may be one of the smartest, least predictable songwriters working the formidable expanses of Austin, TX, a town that has seen its share of that rare species. ~ Erik Hage