I've finally bought a small pile of new CDs somewhere in the middle of my current work madness, but somehow I keep falling back into a Mark Eitzel-induced hole. Why do I need anything else when I've got The Ugly American to listen to? As plenty of existing reviews have pointed out, his vocals are in top form, and it's the best thing he's done in ages, minus maybe one song (opinions differ on exactly which one song isn't up to the album's standard, but my vote goes for Here They Roll Down, where the bagpipe-like instruments in the background are too distracting). It's an easy listen, it curls around you and wraps you up. It'll probably tuck you in, if you let it.

The other fallback album is still Jonathan Goes Country, of course. I picked up i'm so confused on the weekend, but the first listen didn't have the same fun feel to it. We'll see how it goes.

I bought the new Fountains of Wayne album Welcome Interstate Managers without noticing that it's copy controlled. ick ick ick. I feel dirty just touching it. I can sorta understand the fuss about Stacy's Mom, but somehow the 1983-styled teen summer lusty guitar couldn't quite raise a laugh on the outside this evening.

What else? I finally got hold of the new Iron & Wine EP, the new Handsome Family album Singing Bones (even though I'm feeling a bit over their country-gothic schtick), and the new Mojave 3 release. Bonus points to the Uncle Tupelo reissues for using CD-Text for the track names! March 16-20 1992 is worth the price of admission for the Carter Family-styled Atomic Power.

I don't have anything to say about Robert Palmer, apart from mentioning that I always had a soft spot for Looking for Clues. You know, the video. With the big(?) telephone, and all.