Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The debut collaboration between Gretchen Phillips (formerly of Austin's pioneering Two Nice Girls) and cult-fave Gotham crooner David Driver finds the ostensible musical/sexual odd couple meshing with low-key grace and a warm sincerity that often belies its source materials. A loose concept album centering around the trials of love and lust of various stripes, the duo offers up a pair of smart originals that help set the tone (Phillips' "Lesson" yearns for human contact during wartime; Driver's "Oh Starsky" is a frank love letter to Paul Michael Glaser/Dave Starsky of the old Starsky & Hutch cop show). But powered by their inviting voices and Driver's spare, compelling musical textures, the album focuses on often haunting covers of romantic fodder that ranges from '70s pop (Badfinger's "Day After Day," Bad Company's "Ready For Love," Barry Manilow's "Could It Be Magic") to Broadway (Camelot's "I Loved You Once in Silence") and favorites that include Leonard Cohen's seminal "Joan of Arc," the Scud Mountain Boys' "Grudge," and the chestnut "Cast Your Fate to the Wind." It's gay without a trace of camp, and a reinvention of romantic/sentimental schlock that doesn't sacrifice its heart and soul in service of cheap irony. --Jerry McCulley
Togetherness,Phillips & Driver,Bar None Records,Adult Alternative Pop/Rock,Pop,Rock,Rock/Pop
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