In its own mild-mannered way, 'Primal Dream' sounds a death knell for New Wave-flavored power pop. Cool Blue Halo, Barone's 1987 vacation from the Bongos, was the first step. In recasting his songs in incandescent chamber-pop settings on that album, Barone lent his romantic melodies and winsome vocals a vitality that the Bongos' own records had lacked. Primal Dream uses the same basic quartet as Halo, buffed (except for a delicate reworking of Lou Reed's "I'll Be Your Mirror" on the CD) to a radio-friendly sheen. The result is precisely the sort of drum-heavy, commercially minded pop record that college-radio regulars like Barone aren't supposed to make – or, that is, make as well as this.

Propelled by splashy percussion, cello, marimba and Barone's own sinuous E-bow guitar leads, whooshing tracks like "Where the Truth Lies," "Before You Were Born" and the effervescent "River to River" merge lovelorn idealism with arrangements that wouldn't sound out of place on a respectable Top Forty station. Even the occasional bubblegum tendencies of Barone's lyrics ("Today's the day I wake up loving you") are refreshing in this context. Primal Dream has its shortcomings, mainly some cluttered instrumentation that bogs down the otherwise airy songs. But most of Primal Dream proves that Barone is fast moving beyond the limited vocabulary of twelve strings and wimp-pop vocals. And the transition sounds not only necessary but also perfectly logical. (RS 577)

DAVID BROWNE