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Album Details

• Artist: Jeff Klein
• Album: The Hustler
• Label: One Little Indian
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2005-08-22

There is a very dark presence on this record, maybe even one of squalor. While often inspired and occasionally great, only some of the time does it seem to be coming from the artist himself. Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers frontman Greg Dulli produced this disc, and his brooding sin-to-more-sin-then-maybe-salvation is all over the proceedings. The music ambles between slow dirgy odes to dissipation, to faster, abrasive odes to dissipation. "The Red Lantern" in fact sounds like a lost Whigs song. There are other bones to pick here too: "Stripped" is so jarringly pop that it must have been a nod to having a potential single, and a guest appearance by Ani Di Franco is wasted on the techno-bore "Pity." That being said, Klein steps up as a more forceful songwriter than even on his solid debut, with his own demons to wrestle with on the gorgeous "Nobody's Favorite Girl", and "Nearly Motionless." While the almost great "Ironside" is marred by boring hip self-pity ("So we'll drink till we get sick/because anything feels better than being this paralyzed" would have been a cliché on a Robert Johnson record) "Put you to Sleep" and "Cobalt Blue" show a lyric daring that points to great things ahead. Given Dulli's long shadow, I think this is more a brilliant failure than the classic it tries to be. Jeff Klein can deliver the goods with menace and confidence; more of his own original meditations on his worldview would be the next step in what could be a monster career.

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