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Album Details

• Artist: Lou Barlow
• Album: Emoh
• Label: Merge
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2005-02-01

A Lou Barlow project is something to approach cautiously. He is such a brilliant songwriter but there have been some albums and projects of Barlow's that completely stink. Case in point, the last Folk Implosion album. Anyway, here we have one of the first truly solo albums from Barlow and one of his strongest collections of songs to date. Emoh (love the title!) is a collection of 14 primarily acoustic songs that should put the name of Lou Barlow back on many an indie critic's lips. This project is able to pull from all his Sebadoh, Sentridoh, and Folk Implosion excursions, pulling the best from all projects and creating something that really defines what Barlow is all about. There are some tracks that even stretch out on anything that Lou has ever done like "Confused". He also provides another clever cover with Ratt's "Round and Round", yup, that's acoustic too. "Imagined Life" sounds like a very introspective song and is one of my favorites on Emoh. This is one of the few tracks that take a few listens to fully appreciate, the rest of the album is fairly immediate. Another mellower track is "Legendary". It is basically just guitar and Lou's vocals. "Caterpillar Girl" has the Folk Implosion sound to it and is another of my favorites with the really hot groove happening. It does seem like an afterthought but "Ballad of Daykitty" is pretty damn clever too. I may have found one of my favorite albums of 2005 already and January isn't even over yet. Thanks, Lou, for returning to form and gracing us with your brilliant songwriting once again. I just hope that people aren't going to overlook this album.

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