Kris Kristofferson: Easter Island : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In the early Seventies, when he recorded such songs as "Me and Bobby McGee," "Sunday Mornin' Coming Down," "Help Me Make It through the Night," "Breakdown (A Long Way from Home)" and "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)," Kris Kristofferson looked like he might be the next great American singer/songwriter. He had it all: the casualness of Hank Williams, much of the charisma of Bob Dylan and that particular, indefinable power that every straightforward and sentimental artist needs to elevate naive clichés into native myths.

Then, with The Silver Tongued Devil and I (1971), the initial cache of songs was spent, and everything that followed was embarrassing. Now, after long years of musical drought (during which the singer thankfully forged a second career as a solid and successful actor), Kristofferson is back with a new album he seems eager to endorse: "I'm proud of this one," he writes in the liner notes.

Apart from the fact that he's clearly trying again (just listen to his singing), the good news is that Easter Island isn't a disaster. The bad news is that it's a barely mediocre record, one short step up from the bottom. "Eight ounce gloves now, it's title time/ ...I'm afraid we've gone and laid it on the line," Kristofferson sings on the LP's first song, "Risky Bizness," and you get interested. Nine songs later you wonder what he was talking about.

Both the title song and "Living Legend" are given the treatment of anthems and sound important enough to be about something, but if they are, it's a well-kept secret. "The Sabre and the Rose" mimics Leonard Cohen without much luck, "Spooky Lady's Revenge" is pointlessly passable, and "How Do You Feel (About Foolin' Around)" falls apart at the halfway point. Only "Forever in Your Love" really stays in the mind, and that's because of the familiar melody on the chorus.

If Easter Island isn't very good, it's better than nothing. And nothing's what Kris Kristofferson's been giving us lately.