RAYGUN # 22
? 1994
IDAHO
This Way Out
Caroline
Like a
mercurial landscape, Idaho’s This Way Out cuts through a bleak winter in search of the budding
spring flower, a crisp golden brown autumn leaf and the delirious sigh of
summer’s joy. Singer/songwriter Jeff Martin wields modest earthly tools: the
trials and tribulations of this crazy thing called life, a dreamy voice and
just enough torturous, self-deprecating momentum to elevate his music from indie-whine to art-rock. Faster than Codeine but slower
than the rest, Idaho has more inertly profound tension
that a see-saw. Songs like “Taken” and “Weird Wood” gently build from subtle
lulls to quiet storms while “Drive It” and “Fuel” have weighty tempos augmented
by hesitant intervals.
As profusive as Idaho’s music, the lyrics are equally
powerful. Martin writes and sings with the simple abstractness of Leonard
Cohen: there may not be a “Maryann” or “Bird On A Wire”
here, but there’s certainly “Forever”, “Sweep”, and “Still” – slow,
acoustically endowed ballads as harmonically balanced as anything Cohen ever
turned out. Listing to This Way Out
is a blithe journey, one that leaves you swollen, achy and inspired, wishing to
god you could unbottle the fears of your own personal
lament.
- Judy Jade Miller