It took
Jennifer Warnes
five years to construct a follow-up to
Famous Blue Raincoat
, and she still wasn't able to come up with a unifying concept as simple and workable as recording a set of songs by
Leonard Cohen
. She did find some excellent covers, including
Todd Rundgren
's
"Pretending To Care"
and
The Waterboys
'
"The Whole Of The Moon,"
that may have been new to her listeners, and she got a song from
Donald Fagen
(
"Big Noise, New York"
). She also did some of her own writing, and got participation from
Cohen
on
"Way Down Deep."
All of which is to say that there are some worthy selections on
The Hunter
, but on the whole, this record doesn't match its illustrious predecessor. ~ William Ruhlmann