THE STRANGER

APRIL 3, 1996

One hot, windows-open night last summer I was forced to listen to the heartrending break-up of the couple next door. I should’ve just closed the window, but the pleading conversation was so sad and desperate, and I was too embarrassed to make a sound; I feared any intrusion would somehow change the course. Idaho’s frontman Jeff Martin’s lyrics are like that – so intensely personal it’s almost embarrassing to hear them. “There’s a heart that cannot control it’s blood flowing through parts not very easy to find” he sings on “Shame” off of Idaho’s third and newest album, Three Sheets To The Wind. His gorgeous baritone sounds seconds away from a sob, and strings make it all the sadder in “Glass Bottom”: “No I don’t have a place to stay / I’ve given up what I was/ the spirit leaks away.” It’s truly beautiful stuff, and guaranteed to tie your heart up in knots.

Kathleen Wilson

IDAHO, Pete Krebs, Sone: (Sat. April 6, Crocodile)