Album Notes

As the enigmatic title and CD cover implies, each song on the solo debut from Craig Wisda represents a study in ethics.

Starting with I Want It Now, which can be described stylistically as Cream meets PiL. Always Second Best conjures up the angst and keyboards of early Depeche Mode. Electric Girl has a magnetic hook with a rocking backbeat. Like his mentor, alleged Spoilers leader, Dean Stefan, Craig is a shameless rhymer. The Spoilers songbook well represented here, as Wisda covers My Obsession from Stefan, Start Over Again by Chris Hickey, and does a remake of his own Mr. X. He serves up each number apparently oblivious to any pop music stylistic changes since about 1993. This is the 00s after all.

No one knows what There Is A Blue House is about, but it is sonically gripping nevertheless. Further riddles unfold with Oh My Stars and Through A Glass, Darkly. The barnstorming Riot Grrrl Next Door sounds like it was crafted from National Inquirer headlines. Randy Hudspeth's lyrics to Stay Inside Your Circle are complemented by Wisda's guitar work, tipping the hat to Neil Young. Ending the record is the melancholy mandolin-driven ballad Valley Of Eternal Tears.

All in all, this is a very satisfactory debut by an LA native son.

Dylan Marshall
Los Angeles Underground Magazine LosAngelesUnderground@hotmail.com
12/31/05