Peter Case: Who's Gonna Go Your Crooked Mile : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In-between Peter Case albums, it's easy to forget just how good he is as a writer, arranger, player and singer. It's also easy to forget that he's got a somewhat schizophrenic musical persona; on this sixteen-song retrospective, he migrates widely from the post-Plimsouls pop-punk of "Wake Up Call" to the stripped-down, strummin', howlin' and harp-blowin' folk of "Crooked Mile." This disc might have been better off with more of the former and less of the latter, or maybe just less . . . it does carry on a bit. Still, there's plenty to love, including the fiddle-filled country of "Coulda Shoulda Woulda"; the sad, sweet "Blue Distance"; and the sinister "Something's Coming" -- a career high (his two new offerings, "Wake Up" and "My Generation's Golden Handcuff Blues," share a similar edge). But "Two Heroes" has too many words crammed into its tale of circumstantial justice; Case should leave the narratives to Springsteen and stick to his own path -- crooked or not.