February 06 2024
It’s been a decade since native Texan Jeff Talmadge last put out a proper album but clearly he didn’t let the rust settle in. Sparrow, his eighth and latest, is just as strong as anything in his catalogue. In the past 10 years he did manage to keep making music; writing songs for others, recording a track for a Townes Van Zandt tribute record and some bootlegs have surfaced during that time, but Sparrow is his first full album since Kind of Everything. There is a relaxed beauty to the songs here that pull in the
listener from the opening track, the optimistic “Hurricane” that perfectly lays out what follows for the next 30 minutes.
The songs here switch in and out of first person to third, occasionally leaning into compelling characters usually destined for failure, like the protagonist in “Devil’s Highway” who leaves his family and friends to get caught up in a life of booze, cocaine, and bad choices. Elsewhere, he sings about lost love and nostalgia on “Katie’s Got a Locket,” about a woman who still carries the picture of an early love in the locket around her neck. That theme of reminiscence pops up again and again across the album, like on
the sweetly wistful “Forgiveness.” The record closes on “Top of the Hour,” a striking mid-tempo instrumental highlighting his musical prowess. Talmadge’s unrushed deliver comes across like John Prine on his more contemplative songs, and his guitar finger picking style is reminiscent of Guy Clark.
Ten years is a long time to wait for new music, but Sparrow definitely makes the wait easier.
John B. Moore has been covering the seemingly disparate, but surprisingly complimentary genres of Americana and punk rock for the past 20 years.
Blurt/New Noise Magazine/InSite Atlanta/NeuFutur Magazine
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