Always Got Tonight : Chris Isaak : Review : Rolling Stone

Decades after platoons of now-disappeared "roots rockers" raised their flags, Chris Isaak still sings songs ravished by a dreamy out-of-time restlessness. For Isaak, the past has always represented a high style to aspire to instead of a cause to take up. On this collection, Isaak works with producer-musician John Shanks, who last year caught the post-Eighties quintessence of Stevie Nicks; with Isaak, Shanks achieves a similar romantic feat. On the one hand, he reins Isaak in, limiting him to his own basics, coolly sequencing mood-rich insinuations ("One Day"), elegant shuffles ("Let Me Down Easy"), stately narratives ("Courthouse") and offhand grooves (the title song). But Shanks tweaks Isaak's modes with the odd new guitar accent and the slightly harsher percussive attack. Everything remains composed yet acts rowdier, and Isaak, with his top-drawer gift for singing chord changes, thrives; he pleads and bleeds, caresses and croons like he's still not over his discovering Duane Eddy and Roy Orbison. This isn't war; it's love.

JAMES HUNTER
(RS 893 - April 11, 2002)