With mentions of the "badlands" and a refrain of "Heaven is a place on Earth", "Badlands" opens the new record from Kevin Morby with references to classic Springsteen and Berlinda Carlisle. It's probably no spoiler to say that he cops from Brucie more than he does Berlinda on Little Wide Open.
The ramshackle charm of single "Die Young" indicates we are in a new era for the former Babies member. Morby has wholeheartedly affected a persona here, but it works. "Javelin" has a nice swing to it, while "All Sinners" is one of many cuts here which seems to owe a huge debt to late period Lou Reed and Seventies Bob Dylan. The numbers though are fully-realized, and while there's so much here that seems like things you've heard before from folks like Tom Petty and John Cougar Mellencamp, Kevin Morby manages to make this kind of stuff feel almost heartfelt again. Which is to say that Little Wide Open has songs just nimble and tuneful enough to make this listener forget just how derivative all of this is.
The material on Little Wide Open largely charms, even though it seems to anyone who's been listening to this guy for so long that he's sort of jettisoned the sounds of The Babies. There's not a lot of variety either, and so many of these compositions seem similar to each other. Morby's trying really hard here on Little Wide Open to sound like Tunnel of Love-era Springsteen, or even Eighties Dylan, and your mileage with this record will vary depending on how open you are to that kind of thing.
Little Wide Open by Kevin Morby is out now via Dead Oceans.
[Photo: Chantal Anderson]