Search - Jeff Lang :: Whatever Makes You Happy

A Good Album

NDMB | 08/12/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Jeff Lang, Australian Bottleneck/Lap steel Slide Guitar virtuoso has always remained a bit of a well kept secret throughout the wider world. He's won numerous awards, even an Aria, in Australia and is a critics darling there (and to the few faithful worldwide who know of him). His passionate playing and thought provoking lyrics have won him fans where ever he's playedand his live shows are experiences.



This album sees Jeff embark on a much more "radio-friendly" tack then he has done before. His previous album(and to my mind his best) Everything is Still was just Jeff, his guitars and drummer extraordinaire Angus Diggs. For Whatever Makes you Happy Jeff enlists a backing band and calms down on the slide guitar pyrotechnics focussing on shorter, snappier songs. And for the most part this works. Songs such as Switchblade, You Should Have Waited and The Road is Not Your Only Friend are excellent slices of folk/blues/rock or "Disturbed Folk" as Jeff's musical style has been dubbed.



The stand out tracks are two slower moments - By Face Not Name is a haunting ballad replete with a simple lap-steel riff augmented by Jeff and a female vocalists singing in harmony. The subject matter is of rape from a womans perspective, set in a small American town and how this will effect her decision on whether to keep the child or abort it. It is an extremely powerful song.



Rain on Troy is the other highlight and it somehow captures the inertia of small town life perfectly. Simply played but very affecting lyrics.



There are one or two songs on the album that don't work and I think are just filler. You Tremble, Sleeping and even Slip Away drag the album down a star, before The Road is Not Your only Friend lifts it back up again.



A great album that highlights Jeff's maturation as an artist who more people should be made aware of. Hope I get to see him on tour again soon!

"