Gene Clark's first solo album, one he should have done long ago, is a form of redemption. It is a return to the roots and to those qualities that made Younger Than Yesterday one of the most influential American rock albums of the Sixties. This album evokes considerable nostalgia, yet it is not just Gene Clark revisiting "Mr. Tambourine Man" or "Chimes of Freedom." The songs are all new except the...

To those who admire Gene Clark, Two Sides to Every Story is a heartbreaker—in the worst way. ("Is this the dullest album ever made?" was my original opening sentence. "Probably" would have been the second.) Lugubrious to the point of laughableness, the once-classy Clark creeps through a series of Gibranian ballads that is so Antonioni-slow the songs actually seem to stop. Dead. Like this....