Okay, this is produced by Calexico, Richmond Fontaine and Emmylou Harris man JD Foster and features guest performances by Vince Gill, Jim Lauderdale and the legendary pedal-steel player Al Perkins. I was nearly sold by all this, even though the first song wasn’t that great really. But then in song two (‘Things Haven’t Started Happening Yet’) he started to talk about the “eye of a child” and noticed that we “stand between yesterday and tomorrow” (I think the word he was looking for was ‘today’) and I realised that this was folky, middle of the road, adult oriented schlock with faux-sincere lyrics about feeling vaguely uncomfortable and unsettled (why can’t boring songwriters just learn to adjust their cushions?). On another song he sings about “smokey bars and cheap hotels” (sigh). And then he sings “shine on me” at another point. For the love of Odin, would songwriters stop insisting humans can radiate light! It’s just not true! Furthermore Vince Gill’s not that great. He just has a cool name. And what do pedal steel players know? They keep most of Nashvile in schmaltz 12 months a year, so they mustn’t be the greatest judges of music really. And yes JD Foster might have worked with some great artists in the past, but that doesn’t mean he’s working with one now. So, as a weak-willed music journalist, I was nearly swayed by the press release, but at the end of it all, I just couldn’t give this a good review.

Key Track: ‘Strong Enough for This?’