Andrew Rodriguez
Here Comes the Light
(Baudelaire)
This is a record in search of an identity. Rodriguez nods to so many styles and singers—Sean Lennon, solo John Lennon, some Neil Young, orchestral motifs. What results is a blur. One song, “What I Done,” contains the lines: “Here comes another haunting memory/Leading us nowhere/Nowhere but home.” You could say this album is full of similar emotionally toned melodies—the music stays on the loping, sleepy side of the line—that lead listeners nowhere. And that’s too bad: if Rodriguez chose to follow one sound, an audience would surely to follow. This record was apparently five years in the making. Somewhere along the way the plot was lost.
—Sean Flinn
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.