Customer Reviews

Since

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After living with Buckner's 2nd disc, Devotion + doubt for a few months, I realized I could never again live without it. Really. It was one of those discs that just never left the CD player. It shook up all of my mental "top 100 of all time lists" and really changed many of my ideas about popular music. It became my ultimate Desert Island Disc... the one record I would save if my house were burning... well, let's just say the choice got a lot tougher when I heard Since! I really don't know if I could choose one of the discs as my favorite. I see them more as a body of work (with Bloomed as a very strong apprentice piece).

Since is darker (if that's possible) than D+D, only because it's more dreamy, elliptical and downright strange. Buckner is a totally original songwriter. No one writes like this. He uses words as much for the sound as the meaning, and the effect is spellbinding. Words actually take on new meanings. Yes, he's that good. The instrumentation is more varied as are the tempos and arrangements. The sonic are even better than D+D, featuring that deep, dark, tubey sound, but with more texture, better images and good dynamics.

If you loved D+D, I'm sure you have this disc already and have practically worn it out. If you like bands like Giant Sand, Mekons, Whiskeytown, the Walkabouts, Nick Cave, and so forth stop reading right now and get this album.

It is a true masterwork, form a true master that hopefully has many great records left in him.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was turned onto Buckner while staring mindlessly at my TV. A commercial came on peddling an SUV, which featured a snippet from Ariel Ramirez.
I got on the internet, found Buckner in my search through the car maker's advertisement sites, and promptly ordered the CD.

It's hard to describe the music - it's simple and hauntingly beautiful, and it just gets better each and everytime I listen to it.

Thank you, Richard. What a wonderful gift you have.

For fans of ALL music, this is truly an amazing record. From start to finish Buckner mesmerizes with an eclectic assortment of help from members of Calexico, Tortoise, Friends of Dean Martinez, Gastr Del Sol to name a few. If you like Tupelo, Son Volt, Townes Van Zandt or any music with a lyrical flair, BUY THIS! You will not be disapointed...also he puts on one helluva live show.

At the first creak of Richard Buckner's voice you feel you're in for a slightly off-balanced ride; he sings as if the words are untrustworthy things he has to guide to where he is heading. Intriguing and story-telling words they are, framed lightly by a wayward acoustic guitar, percussion or steel guitar. His tones jump around on the opener Believer like he's singing it from a dizzying spot, Faithful Shooter is more grounded and pinched up by its percussion.

Ariel Ramirez is bleak and haunting while Jewelbomb kicks up some dirt with
its spurring guitar and reflective vocal. The Ocean Cliff Clearing directs itself to more pleasant spots.
Goner w/ Souvenir is a standout, its strums and percussion clicking off Buckner's round-voiced enunciations. His impressive observations peak with the music here. Slept patters along deep plunks of the guitar; Pico gathers a pace, an instrumental. Coursed is on pleasant ground again, a vocal collected from a well of old heartbreak it seems; Lucky Buzz gets a good grip on the idea of vengeance and a tripping drum. 10-Day Room cuts quickly and beautifully; Brief & Boundless huddles around the word "raze" with its soft pluckings of guitar; Hand @ The Hem reveals the peculiar way Buckner has of communicating: a snatch of conversation, a compelling image, tied up to his restless vocal chords.

Boys, The Night Will Bury You is sly and evocative, a top tune, and Once finishes this terrific album with just-cooling images and moods--"I lapped up to the bay bar & saw her bobbing like a wave & I slowed down" "I dreamed of a couple dancing close and drunk in the spray of lights they made."

In the end, this is a powerful singer with a voice that carves out old misbegotten experience like rotten wood to good song.

WHOMP! ...is the sound of Buckner's songs delivering their soul-punch. Who can better move the soul, the heart, the spirit with lyrics and music? Nobody. mmm hmm. go ahead, nod knowingly. it's okay. it's even encouraged.

At the time of the release of Since, I was in a relationship with the woman who seems -- at this point in my life -- to be destined to be the one I didn't want to lose. She and I listened often to my copy of Since, and I bought her a copy to play when she was at her home. She asked if any songs reminded me of our relationship -- "of course," I replied, and through choked back tears I said, "Souvenir."

Buckner's songs have that immense power over me. The first time I heard "Mud" off the Bloomed album, I started crying at his line, "and Christ how this life, from mud to miracle, is just the prettiest little burden, isn't it, El?" What beautiful poignancy -- a melancholically clever sentiment shared with the woman whom he loved and who was herself clever enough to understand its depth and beauty. Such is the affection in the songs on Since.

I won't waste your time, nor will I insult Buckner, by encapsulating each of the songs from Since. A reviewer's words cannot enliven his songs -- they must be heard, felt, nurtured and tended by one's mind, heart, soul. By all rights in a just world, Buckner would be the verdant envy of every lyricist/poet plying the trade today. 5 stars, surplus waiting.

After hearing a short clip from Since on "All Things Considered" I immediately got this disc. These songs get into your bones and keep on beckoning... Richard Buckner's haunting, original, and literate voice has become a close companion. Though I'm very enthusiastic about two other musicians at the moment (Lucinda Williams and Elliott Smith) Buckner wins out. This is an amazing recording. Highly recommended.

I must disagree with those who feel this is an album of unfinisheed songs. In fact, I think this is Buckner's strongest work: one song flows seamlessly to the next, and not one note is out of place. The production on this album was a revalation for me. The textures of guitars, pedal steel, cello, and everything else, blend together to create something which is not quite country, but not quite pop. It's wonderfully unconventional, yet not in the way bands like Wilco try to be. Buckner is what he is, and people either seem to love it or not. I'm in the former category. True,"Believer" was a bit jarring the first time I heard it, but I had only one minute and seventeen seconds to think about that before a gorgeous guitar solo distracted me. Having made it through this jagged gate, I was then pulled into the warm house that is "Faithful Shooter", and from there it's smooth sailing through 15 of the most unique and enticing tracks in alt-country. I don't always know exactly what Buckner is talking about, but I never understood the lyrics of early R.E.M either, and that never bothered me. I catch words and phrases and assemble my own associations, all the while pulled along by a landscape of perfectly placed instrumentation. The cover image is quite appropriate, as there is a theme both of relationships flaring and then extinguishing, as well as a chain of imagery involving fire, as in "Jewelbomb": "Did you let your angel burn out/ like a pipeload under a flame?" Which brings me to another delightfully unique Bucknerian trait- much like Willie Nelson, Buckner has developed his own unique phrasing (not that he sounds anything like Willie). Nelson was often ridiculed for his failure to sing like everyone else, and didn't get to record his own songs for a long time because of it. Buckner's style may not suit everybody, but I could listen to him sing the alphabet with pleasure. So while some of you may find this album deficient, I hope prospective buyers won't let others decide their musical tastes for them. I can listen to this album any time and feel better; I never get tired of it, and if my ipod malfunctioned and could only hold 10 CDs worth of music, this would definitely be one of them. Give it a chance, and it just might become one of your favorites too.

A year after his watershed sophomore release, "Devotion and Doubt", comes this equally interesting, but less powerful album of the same general heartbreak n' loss, and general malaise one comes to expect with Richard Buckner. The difference with this album, like Neil Young's "Rust Never Sleeps", is that Buckner is beginning to depend on heavier sounds to push his envelope - a common move among young artists today (re: Vic Chesnutt's fifth album). While the songs are laden with metaphors equal of brilliance as those on "Doubt", a much more somber and sophisticated album, a number of them seem run through the grunge, high-volted and amplified enough to make some want to call Buckner a pale Uncle Tupelo. And the ballads, so achingly convincing on the prior album, when placed between the heavy thump of bass drums and the fuzz of electric guitars, seem self-concious and syrupy. Fortunately, there's enough melody to shine through even the loudest track, and the songs do grow on you. Not too off track for Buckner, but nominally so, not so much a departure as a brief detour into a common ground as Steve Earle's "El Corozon", it's a richly textured album, full of grace and poetry, and like its predecessor it feels like a story unfolding, with each song a chapter. Buckner's a mighty new talent - when I first heard the louder girth I was expecting a happy tune - no wonder the songs seem tired the second time around, with a few quiet exceptions, i.e. the final, significant "Once". Four stars for being above the rest, one less than five for Buckner being one less than sure about himself.

After the downer, low-on-beats, folk-country groove of his first two albums, I wouldn't have expected Buckner to go with so full a band/sound, let alone from such a well-known roster of indie-rock personae... it's funny, at first, to hear him rock out, with drums and all, but ultimately it works. David Grubbs' contributions go especially well here, adding a touch of Gastr del Sol piano melancholia which deepens the wounded spaces of the songs. "Faithful Shooter" is unbelievable, "Ocean Cliff Clearing" moreso, and "Boys, the Night Will Bury You" recalls the unrecoverable Leonard Cohen of "Songs of Love and Hate" and "Queen Victoria." Boozy, sepulchral, with a voice as much dog-growl as baritone, hoarsely moaning his heartbreak to the moon, the night, and the crickets, Buckner unites the longstanding folk-country set with the gritty literati of the avant-garage, no mean feat, and the result is stunning.

This is a little more rockin' than Devotion + Doubt, but no less special. His words still cut to the bone and "raize" your forgotten emotions about love-lost and looking within yourself. His words continue to have that surreal feel but always brings you back with his genuinity and conviction. I feel this guy.