Published on Aug 25, 1998
I’ve often written in the last few months about the dearth of
singer/songwriters on the market now. We seem to lose at least one
each decade: Jim Croce in the ’70s, Harry Chapin in the ’80s, John
Denver last year.
Into this void steps Tom Freund, a singer whose vocals sound
like a cross between Daniel Johnston, Bob Dylan and Gordon Gano.
His debut release,
North American Long Weekend, is one that’s short on energy
but offers more than just a glimmer of hope for this newcomer.
Freund, whose resume includes time with The Silos, takes a very
low-key approach to the 13 songs on this first solo effort. It is
an effect that builds up with the listener in stages. On the first
listen, you’re bored to tears until there is a brief hint at life
with an uptempo number. On the second listen, things become more
manageable. By the third listen, everything seems like it always
fell into place.
The songs on
North American Long Weekend sing about hope in the midst of
despair, and freedom in the middle of feeling trapped. (Admittedly,
I don’t have as solid a grasp on all the tracks; I lived with this
tape for three days, and I still don’t think I got all the
nuances.) This is evidenced on the opening track “Digs,” a
relationship song which dares to tell the inamorata of one’s life
to stop trying to change everything about the other person. It
takes a few listens to clearly get the message on this one, but
when you do, it hits with all the power of an 18-pound
sledgehammer.
Alienation creeps into the album on tracks like “More Than
Necessary” and “27,” the latter being one of my favorite tracks off
the album. The search of finding yourself (and, if I heard
correctly, finding someone to spend the rest of your life with) is
a difficult path to explore; Freund (with the help of a band that
bounces from acoustic folk to jazz to rock) at least lets the
listener know that they’re not alone. The Dylan influences rear
their head on “Lady Jane,” easily the prettiest number on the
album.
But not everything on
North American Long Weekend clicks. No matter how hard I
tried, I simply could not get into (nor could I grasp the meanings
of) “Trondheim” and “Holden Caulfield.” It’s not that they’re bad
songs, it’s just that they seemed to lose their focus, which kept
the listener from finding theirs. (For that matter, when most of
the songs on an album are played at a tempo which rivals a New
Orleans funeral march, slightly faster-tempoed songs peppered
throughout the album would have been quite welcome.)
In fact, the only faster-tempoed number – the title track –
works the best among the whole batch of songs. It’s not that Freund
should abandon slower-tempoed numbers, but when they make up the
bulk of the album, it tends to drag down the project quickly.
Granted, repeated listens help matters – but not every listener is
going to be willing to give any album that much leeway.
The only other point where a listener will have to grow into
North American Long Weekend is in the category of Freund’s
vocals. They are distinctive, to say the least – a combination of
strained, passioned delivery and a bit of a bleat to them, not
unlike Dylan.
North American Long Weekend shows that the journey of a
thousand miles was not completed with this album, but Freund has a
pretty good start on the road to becoming the singer/songwriter for
the ’90s and beyond.