Jim White: Wrong-Eyed Jesus!

The spare, rural sounds of Jim White will soon get him called names like "new country," or "alternative country," or "insurgent country," or some such easy tag. None of these are truly accurate. White's lyrics are too strange and unusually personal—and his guitar/stand-up bass arrangements too melody-deficient and downright odd—to really be lumped in with traditional country. His style is more in the vein of Björk crossed with Tom Waits; indeed, longtime Waits collaborator Ralph Carney plays weird instruments like the slide clarinet and musical saw on many of the album's 11 tracks. White's vocal style may be high-lonesome, but his songs are too long and too literate to be country songs. They're really just personal, compelling, spiritual, and even beautiful in the case of Victoria Williams' guest vocal on "Angel-Land." It's not country, really, unless you're willing to accept the possibility that White has come up with a new direction for country music. And that may well be the case; if you're the type who's curious about the possibility, you'll probably enjoy this strangely haunting album.