Willard Grant Conspiracy: Everything's Fine : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Yes Depression, rather than No Depression, would be a better way to describe the sadly beautiful, rustic songs of Robert Fisher and Paul Austin, a.k.a. Willard Grant Conspiracy. On this fourth album, they travel the usual open roads, border towns and star-filled skies accompanied by accordion, B-3 organ and mandolin. But there's an edge to Fisher's darknight-of-the-soul vocals (like Nick Cave with a drawl or Dave Alvin as a goth) that takes the sound off the usual blue trails and into the black ("Southend of a Northbound Train" and "Drunkard's Prayer"). Like the Conspiracy's contemporaries, Damien Jurado and Mark Lanegan, and very unlike forebear Cave, there is little light at the end of the lyrical tunnel. But like Cave, the best songs are delivered free of much embellishment, as on the man and piano number "Massachusetts." (DENISE SULLIVAN)