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Album reviews Music

Discs

Rating: NN

The beauty of Vic Chesnutt’s solo indie-folk-twang albums lies in the tunes’ delicate intimacy. The stripped-down arrangements keep his ripped-apart-and-taped-together warble up front, and they have an immediacy that makes you feel like you’re hanging out with the dude on a porch down South. All that is lost in his Brute side project, a collaboration with mainstream jam band Widespread Panic (a watered-down Blues Traveler). There are hints of potential on a few less Panic-stricken tracks, like the quietly contemplative Expiration Day with its pretty pedal steel and harmonica. But Chesnutt’s fragile voice is often drowned out in a sea of generic big guitar psych-rock riffs and totally predictable song structures.

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