Dan Bern: Fleeting Days : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Dan Bern has grown up. The man once obsessed with Tiger Woods' balls has traded in most of his one-liners for breakup songs that don't sting, and folk-gospel numbers that don't preach. Take the opener, "Baby Bye Bye," where Bern sings, "You're gone, it was time to fly, and all that's left is the fact we tried," over a bright chord progression that refuses to submit to depression. In his trademark nasal delivery, you can hear the sound of a man at peace with himself. On the driving "Crow," he lets the world know it can piss off and keep it's awards -- "If that's what's meant by confirmation, I don't even want the nomination." The bluesy "Fly Away" warns of the disconnection that comes from "checking e-mail too much." His capable road band, the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy, returns to help the songwriter rock out, as it did on 2001's New American Language. Together they get intimate on "Soul," the album's mission statement posed as a question: "Are you gonna follow your soul, or just the style of the day?"

EVAN SCHLANSKY
(March 11, 2003)