Langhorne Slim: Langhorne Slim

Given that he's a classically trained musician, Brooklyn banjo-hound Langhorne Slim (née Sean Scolnick) might strike some as a bit unserious, like maybe he's using his high, nasal voice and rough plucking to poke fun at old-time mountain music, not to pay homage to it. But while the peppy, readily hummable folk-rock songs on Langhorne Slim's self-titled LP are a little shaggier than the average trad-minded troubadour product, it would be a mistake to call the album dilettantish or shallow. Langhorne Slim is a well-crafted but blessedly unfussy collection of songs about the simple pleasures of being young, rakish, and devil-may-care. It's like one of those solidly built '70s singer-songwriter records, given a touch of the hanging-out-in-the-basement looseness of '80s college-rock. Langhorne Slim himself is a little too shrimpy to pull off the full evangelical fervor he aims for at times, but it's refreshing to hear a songwriter this gifted at melody give himself the license to rave on, unselfconsciously.