Pete Yorn: Musicforthemorningafter : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Singer-songwriter Pete Yorn is too attuned to the lure of melody to pass for just another gloomy young strummer, and he's too smart to look on the perky side of love. Musicforthemorningafter is, like its title, atmospheric, gently lit by sunlight and regret. Yorn's tunes are driven by the hangover strum of acoustic guitar, but he's one impish mopehead; weird but weirdly right stuff abounds, like the unidentified fuzzy scrapings getting joyous on the rockish gem "Murray." He likes Burundi-ish pounding (on the first single, "Life on a Chain"), and Eighties borrowings like the quiet-storm chorus of "Just Another" and the Joy Division guitar on - what else? - "Black." Rueful verging on bitter, realistic but not jaundiced, Morningafter is romantic beyond the reasonable expectation of its author's natural pessimism. (RS 867 - April 26, 2001)

ARION BERGER