Search - Richard Buckner :: Impasse

Uncategorizable and uncompromising

pschattel2 | Arden, NC United States | 10/16/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Buckner has traditionally been labelled alternative country, but his music has always been a little to the left of everything else. Intelligent, literary, mysterious, and with unforgettable melodies, Buckner has suprised and delighted his listeners with every album. With "Impasse" he has done it again: Very different yet seemingly inevitable, this new album references such early-eighties post-punk bands like Modern English and Wire, but still stays within that same inexplicable realm -- part Pavement, part Nick Drake, part Ralph Stanley ... and now part Cure? Fascinating stuff.If there's a gripe, its that he seems to be moving into the same lyrically inaccessible place that Jay Farrar went to -- all metaphor and simile, and few real connections. He is undoubtedly one of rock's best lyricists, but it's tough to relate to such obliqueness. You hum the melodies, but you don't always sing along.Still, its encouraging to see an artist refuse to compromise and keep challenging his audience. Buckner is one of our finest, most integral artists. His boundaries seem almost limitless."

Junkmedia Review - Most accessible yet

junkmedia | Los Angeles, CA | 02/21/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When I heard that Richard Buckner had recorded his latest album at his home studio with no other musicians, save for his wife on drums, I braced myself for a painfully raw, minimalist piece of work. After all, this is the same Richard Buckner who took MCA's major label bucks and made two of the most willfully deconstructed and personal albums of the '90s (1996's Devotion and Doubt and 1998's Since). Those albums twisted simple chord progressions and traditional songwriting styles into almost wholly unrecognizable shapes, often to brilliant effect. Not surprisingly, Buckner's relationship with MCA lasted for only those two albums. Now that he's been left to his own devices (on the tiny Chicago-based indie, Overcoat), it stands to reason that he would come up with something even more radical, even more exploratory. But Impasse, the new album in question, is not some guttural primal scream committed to tape. In fact, it's probably Buckner's most accessible release thus far. And, in a happy coincidence, it's also probably his best. Impasse is a powerful, wrenching work, both impeccably crafted and passionately felt. The most surprising aspect of the album is Buckner's reliance on synthesizers. The songwriter's wooly vocals pitted against symphonic keyboard swirls sounds like an odd move at first, but it's an almost wholly successful one. Though Impasse may not have had the budget of Buckner's major label offerings, it's his richest, most sonically varied recording. Case in point, the stunning "(a year ahead)...& a light," which kicks off with a galloping beat and a gorgeous twin-guitar hook and segues seamlessly into a soothing acoustic slide guitar and synth middle section, only to burst into a high-speed finale. Not a moment is wasted on Impasse: each song is focused and economical, and each song consistently rewards repeated listening. As usual, Buckner's lyrics are uniformly excellent. With the precision of a short story writer and the tortured soul of a poet, he conveys heartache and loss like few can. Impasse sees Buckner taking a slightly more impressionistic approach to lyrics, but, as a whole, they make up what feels like an ebbing and flowing narrative. It's no mistake that the lyrics are printed in the album's booklet as a whole piece, unbroken by song titles. So I'll go ahead and say it, even though I dread making proclamations such as these: Impasse is easily one of 2002's best albums. It'd be a shame if it didn't get the exposure it deserves. Tyler Wilcox
Junkmedia Review"