16 years after their last jointly recorded Jayhawks album, Gary Louris and Mark Olson teamed up again under the Jayhawks label.
And they also brought along original member Marc Perkman as well as Tim O-Reagan (drums) and Karen Grotberg (keyboard, vocals) who joined the band in 1995.
This is a blessing for the Americana genre. The solo performances of the two wranglers were too erratic. Now they sing together again, their voices wallowing neatly again around each other. And they use the whole range of instruments at their disposal: thunderous e-guitars, harmonicas, solo piano, brilliant strings, steel, fiddles, acousticals – preferably all in the mix.
The spectrum covers a lot of styles but largely avoids alternative country. However, “She Walks In So Many Ways” clearly refers to The Byrds, “Hey Mr. Man” to Buffalo Springfield and slow emotional tremors like “Black-eyed Susan” to their own past heydays.
In parts a captivating comeback that only rarely lets on about the fact that Olson and Louris aren’t yet entirely comfortable with each other after all these years of silence.
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