Tomorrow's Sounds Today [Import]

Lyrically, Yoakam maintains his penchant for writing simple, intelligent, poetic odes to love gone wrong, romantic indecision, and dreams gone amuck. Although the stock ingredients for country storytelling are utilized frequently throughout these songs, Yoakam still manages to use his criminally underrated songwriting talent to breathe life into tracks that would likely meet undignified demise in the hands of less capable songsmiths. The track listing on this album reads like a lost album ala Morrissey with titles such as, "A Promise You Can't Keep," "A World of Blue," and "Love Caught Up To Me." Yoakam's appeal, however, always did lie in his ability to paint a self-portrait of himself as a desperate, self-loathing fool.

Riding on the strength of these tunes, this album shines as bright as a southern star. While it's safe to say that Yoakam has once again spent some time writing from a room at the Heartbreak Hotel, with songs such as "Time Spent Missing You," "A Place To Cry," and the exceptional "Dreams of Clay," it is also quite obvious that he still possesses his uncanny ability to make it sound hip to be broken-hearted. Armed with his trademark country croon, Yoakam trots through an album that revisits influences ranging from Buck Owens (of which he duets on the album's closing bonus cuts) to Elvis to Cheap Trick, with a cover version of their age old hit "I Want You To Want Me." Basically, there is a gem of some sort here for most anyone. Although not quite a seminal D.W. recording, this one still concludes making you feel pretty cool to be blue.

There's very little that could be considered weak here, unless "Place to Cry" (which can seem a bit out of synch with the rest of the album) or "World of Blue" qualify. A lot of the songs remind me of the best material played on shows like Hee-Haw in the 70's like "Promise You Can't Keep", "Sad Side of Town", and "What Do You Know About Love". There's also some of his best work on any album including the perfect opener in "Love Caught Up to Me", "Free to Go", "For Love's Sake", and the best song of the bunch, in my opinion, "Time Spent Missing You". The cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" is also great with an added country flavor that only Dwight could supply.

Like I said, while the "tomorrow" part of the title may be misleading (this is retro and proud of it) the album ranks as one of Dwight's best. With his catalog, that's quite a feat.