Gary heffern sure made a lot of friends in his migration up the west coast, from his late-'70s proto-Americana compatriot Country Dick Montana in San Diego punkers the Penetrators, to Seattle-area acquaintances Scott McCaughey, Eddie Vedder and Mark Arm. Heffern, who now lives in Finland, released three albums in the early '90s (Bald Tires In The Rain in 1990, Askew in 1993, and Painful Days in 1995), all of which were lightly distributed and have since fallen out of print. Consolation, his first disc in over a decade, features a generous helping of well-known guests, including McCaughey, Mark Lanegan, Steve Berlin, Alejandro Escovedo, Peter Case, and a backing band that plays country-rock echoes of Gram Parsons' depleted mood.

The album opens on an unusually upbeat note with "Ghosts On The Screen", a veritable country hoedown with a whispery vocal of paranoid thoughts. The harmony-laden title track follows with homemade hippie warmth similar to Bill Kirchen's early work with Commander Cody. The 1971 film soundtrack of Sometimes A Great Notion provides Alan and Marilyn Bergman's "All His Children", sung as a duet with Mark Lanegan. This is a shade looser than Charley Pride's original, but captures the same hypnotic Christian ambiance. Heffern favors the quietly powerful, such as his cover of Merle Travis' harrowing "Dark As A Dungeon", confided as a waltzing lullaby, with a soporific vocal to lure coal miners into the abyss.

The Americana sounds are interrupted by moog bass, funk guitar and hallucinogenic paranoia on "Friendly Fire", followed by the minimalist heartbeat-soundscape of "First Kiss". The modern sounds are an unnerving disruption to the album's grievous mood, which returns with a surprisingly forthright prescription for a dying parent, "La La Land". The album closes with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Growin' Up", converted from a vibrant coming-of-age sing-along to a confessional, ploddingly metronomic dirge that strips the lyrics of their buoyancy. It's a numbing end to an eccentric album of country and folk themed with paranoia, recovery, faith, dread, ambivalence, melancholy, and momentary contentment.

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