Customer Reviews

I Never Even Asked for Light

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4 star:		(2)
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I LOVED Lullaby's previous release, Blanket Warm, and at first I couldn't grasp "I Never Even Asked For Light." Now, however, both are equally amazing. "Light" has a more aggressive edge, but the same dark poetry and complex accoustic instrumentation. "Hypnotist" contains my favorite Lullaby lyric: "I dreamt I was a firefighter, but the flames were never real. I dreamt I was an engineer, and I designed it dear, the world's perfect treadmill. I dreamt I was a hypnotist, a farmer and an architect, a poet and an acrobat. I dreamt the flames were real." Original and beautiful, as is the whole album.

While I still prefer Blanket Warm overall, I was impressed with the dimension that the more aggressive songs (e.g., The Hypnotist) add to the picture this lush music paints. I think this album is missing the narrative element of Blanket Warm and is a bit less consistent, but nonetheless I recommend the second album from these midwestern minstrels highly.

This sharp-dressed four-piece from Lincoln, Nebraska write songs about "serenading the sky under an audience of seagulls" and their impressive second album boasts a range and variety of compositions and arrangements which you would never expect from the "alternative country" label. I Never Even Asked For Light is a remarkably rich collection of songs about self-delusion and despair, full of characters who fly too close to the sun, wrapped up in hauntingly beautiful melodies. The all-acoustic instrumentation doesn't prevent them rocking out and generating a big noise on tracks like Hypnotist, but mostly the mood is one of quiet contemplation, echoing through folk ballads of the highest order such as the Man Vs The Tide suite. Sounding like nothing else you've heard, and with songs full of juicy lines like "Anchors away - these Euclidean minds are our ball and chains" (and you'd be surprised how hummable that is), this is one of the most unlikely, but rewarding, growers of the year.

Great listening. Good production with inventive orchestration