Did every mom-and-pop record store on earth simultaneously put all of their Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris discs in the bargain bin? Or maybe Jessica Simpson's performance in that Dukes of Hazzard movie was really more inspirational than it let on. Whatever the case, country-tinged excursions are rapidly becoming the en vogue move for female singer-songwriters in 2006. Everyone from Jenny Lewis and Isobel Campbell to Norah Jones and Michelle Branch have released twanging side projects in the past few months and now Broken Social Star Amy Millan is borrowing the low-brimmed straw hat with Honey From the Tombs, her solo debut. Even without all the de facto competition, though, the LP is a minor affair-- especially compared to the exuberant melodrama of Stars' 2004 triumph, Set Yourself on Fire. Apart from a handful of winning Broken Social Scene-assisted dream-pop gestures, Honey is an austere break-up album dominated by second-rate whiskey'n'tears-fueled backwoods banalities. Without the grit to make her twanging strums stick, Millan merely regurgitates country-folk's most obvious characteristics.
Members of a Toronto bluegrass band named Crazy Strings (seriously) accompany the singer on much of Honey, gently picking at banjos and mandolins. Several of the purely acoustic, drum-less tracks-- "Losin You", "Ruby II", "Baby I", "He Brings Out the Whiskey in Me"-- skip by interchangeably, all marked by a downtrodden, woe-is-me vibe that permeates the entire record. "Sometimes I feel like my only friend is a whiskey glass/ You know it don't stop the time but it helps it pass," Millan opines on the Jenny Whitley cover "Baby I", conjuring a particularly hackneyed sentiment. The abundance of such lazy, sophomoric turns of phrase makes some sense considering most of album's songs were written more than six years ago, but their relic status doesn't excuse such ruminations, which should have been either buried or improved at some point.
Putting its shortcomings into high relief are the album's three tracks recorded with BSS leaders Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew, which lusciously hint at the glossy pop of Millan's main gigs. More sophisticated both lyrically and sonically, "Skinny Boy", "Headsfull", and especially "Wayward and Parliament" embellish Millan's sensual, breathy coo with a perfect amount of unobtrusive atmospherics and lush reverb. Dreamlike and lingering, "Skinny Boy" is the album's best pop song, its palpable longing wrapped in chiming guitars and soothing cymbal crashes. Its take on the romantic cycle is nuanced as well, with the singer summing things up thusly: "Some love, some prostitution/ Some denial, some doubt, some dance." Meanwhile, "Wayward and Parliament" is an experimental anomaly that's more Brian Eno than Grand Ole Opry. Synths offer an ominous intro and are soon balanced by Millan's lullaby croon. Then, about midway through, the song takes a sharp turn into the absinthe ether as jungle drums, skulking bass, and a wafting trumpet evoke a righteously sinister air.
As "the girl in Stars," Millan offers a blurry feminine counterpart to co-lead Torquil Campbell's haughty theatrics, and together they skewer relationship dysfunction with wit and defiance. But there's little to match the brilliance of something like the poignant aftermath tale "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" here, as the Canadian songstress trolls the same subject matter while faltering amidst insular self-pity. Honey's more fleshed-out productions show Millan has the ability to be engaging on her own, but they are too scarce to make this album anything more than a humble footnote.
