This one started well. It seemed that, at last, one of those Canadian sons of Woody Guthrie walking the Americana trail had finally got the joke as Scott Cook opened his album “Moonlit Rambles” with “Song For The Slow Dancers” and duly took a wry look at the music business of today.
Only, as this album progressed, it became clear that such an appreciation of irony was merely a surface effect as the great pit of sentimental self-congratulation swallowed up the majority of the rest of the songs. Don’t misunderstand me, there was nothing actually wrong with any of these songs but few were in any way memorable or otherwise distinguishable from the many others doing that sunny afternoon roots festival singalong thang. So, for every decent song – like “All My Moonlit Rambles”- there were two painted by numbers pseudo Nashville almost protest songs like ““The Lord Giveth (And The Landlord Taketh Away)”. Easy target, no answers or opinions. The perfect festival song, in other words.
“Moonlit Rambles” is an inoffensive album and I’m pretty sure that is not a good thing to be when so many others are following exactly the same plan.