ARLAN FEILES
Come Sunday Morning... (Not-Pop Records) Arlan Feiles took a little while to follow up on his 2004 debut, Razing A Nation, but the wait has been well worth it. He has a wonderful ability to wed insightful lyrics, like a Dylan or Simon, with minimalist melodies that are damn near majestic in their simplicity; if he was a carpenter he'd never bend a nail. Feiles has once again turned in essentially a virtuoso performance, with only three guest musicians on a few tracks and backing vocals employed on only two of those. It's difficult to determine an underlying theme in Come Sunday Morning, but there's a connectivity between the tracks that could perhaps best be described as a forlorn melancholia for the negative changes that have taken place in the American social and political fabric. There's a tinge of desperation to Feiles' words, but it shouldn't be confused with hopelessness. Perhaps he believes that when people finally get desperate enough, they will effect the positive, corrective change that he envisions. More power to him.

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