Caitlin Cary: While You Weren't Looking : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Caitlin Cary's debut solo album, While You Weren't Looking, demonstrates that while her bad-boy band mate Ryan Adams was grabbing all the attention as Whiskeytown's frontman, she was writing dreamy folk-pop songs. Now the fiddler and harmony singer has created a formidable recording with the aid of fellow former Whiskeytown members -- guitarist Mike Daly, drummer Skillet Gilmore and bassist Mike Santoro -- with former Jayhawk Jen Gunderman on keyboards. Providing a varied backdrop to Cary's lilting alto, producer Chris Stamey goes from lush to spare, using everything from a horn section to a harmonium to wondrous effect. Cary's bittersweet reflections on fallen angels and women who love too much lend songs such as the heartbreaking "Sorry" and "Shallow Heart, Shallow Water" an aching, wistful quality, much in the vein of classic folk-rockers Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson. Picking up the tempo, the bouncy "Pony" has Cary's lovely voice sheathed in a Spector-esque setting, and the propulsive "Thick Walls Down" features a splendid he-said/she-said duet with singer Thad Cockrell. Two more duets can be found on a limited-edition bonus EP, featuring Adams ("The Battle") and Backslider Chip Robinson ("Keys to the Fair").

HOLLY GEORGE-WARREN
(RS 893 – April 11, 2002)