Joe Henry - Tiny Voices

The follow-up to the universally acclaimed Scar album from songwriter Joe Henry, who gained widespread attention for the work he did on Solomon Burke's Grammy Award winning Don't Give Up On Me album. Twelve brilliant tracks recorded with backing from avant-garde clarinetist Don Byron and trumpeter Ron Miles. Digipak. Anti. 2003. Album Description

 Style over substance for the NPR crowd
I picked up Joe Henry's "Fuse" when it first came out on the strength of gushing reviews. I was immediately smitten with "Monkey," and bored to tears with the rest. I tried to get through "Fuse" three times, and each was more painful than the last (I single-tracked "Monkey" a whole lot, though). I vowed never to get within ten feet of a Joe Henry CD ever again. But then I heard "Animal Skin" on the radio and gave him one more try.

"Tiny Voices" looks great on paper. You would think from the reviews here and elsewhere that Joe Henry is the second coming. I agree with other reviewers that it's "uncategorizable," but "uncategorizable" can mean a lack of focus. I also agree that it's "jazzy:" it clunkily incorporates a surficial jazz sound which constantly interrupts the songs like a pesky mosquito. "Seamless" it's definitely not. Another reviewer called this a soul record, which is a great analogy. Unfortunately Henry isn't nearly as good at blue-eyed soul as, say, Ron Sexsmith or Alex Chilton. This album's the aural equivalent of the Bamboo Steamer: it does 101 things stylistically, but none of them well.

Joe Henry sings wonderfully here. His voice is at once distinctive and unassuming, and the round, pungent reverb effect with just a hint of slapback used throughout suits his timbre perfectly. The "unassuming" part is a pleasant surprise, given how hard this album tries to be either "universally acclaimed" or "vastly underrated" (see, you win both ways).

The problem here is Henry's songs. They just aren't very interesting. On just acoustic guitar and voice they'd be a cure for insomnia. Even with all the atmospheric production and quirky instrumentation here, they just can't engage interest, let alone sustain it for nearly an hour. There's a linear flatness to the songwriting, a near-total lack of dynamics. They barely change in tempo or mood, not within the song nor from one song to the next. Every song is too long. They'd be the perfect length for the mood of the production if they were actually well-written, but since they're so boring, they just drag and drag for five and six minutes at a time. Henry may be a good lyricist... turns of phrase caught my ear here and there... but I simply could not get emotionally invested enough in his songs to find out.

Clarinetist Don Byron sounds like a tourist here. He's not out of his depth so much as Henry is out of Byron's. His clarinet is way overused and it sounds as though Henry had very little creative input on how Byron would fit in. Byron sounds like he was left to his own devices to blow a few riffs and mimic some arpeggios. With few true jazz changes to work with, Byron does the best he can with a limited palette. It might've worked better if he wasn't so loud in the mix, or if different effects were used to distinguish his charted parts from his improvisations. Only on "Flesh and Blood," the only successful genre-hopper here, does his clarinet make sense. Sticking a respected jazz player on a rock session does not automatically get you the results of, say, Sonny Rollins on "Tattoo You."

The production is, well, interesting. It certainly evokes a mood. Much of it is in the shadow of Jon Brion, who would never let the sound of a record overwhelm the material like "Tiny Voices" does... but then Brion usually gets better songs to work with. Like Henry's songs, there's a numbing linearity and lack of dynamics in the mix. "Tiny Voices" also sounds a lot like "Life in a Glasshouse" by Radiohead. That song off of "Amnesiac," released over two years before "Tiny Voices," may well have been the inspiration for this entire album, at least to the producer. "Loves You Madly" sounds most like the woozy, New Orleans funeral march of "Life in a Glasshouse." But where "Life in a Glasshouse" walks a perfect tightrope between chaos and harmony, like so much of Radiohead's best music, "Loves You Madly" sounds unfinished and rushed. If this effect was deliberate, well, the experiment failed.

"Tiny Voices'" priority is to be unique, and at this I guess it succeeds. But its desire to be different narrowly limits its mood and dynamics. Thanks to the production, it's not as incredibly bland as "Fuse," but then there aren't any songs nearly as good as "Monkey" here either. There's far better albums exploring this same territory by Rufus Wainwright, Fiona Apple and especially Even Johansen's "Quiet and Still." In fact Joe Henry's labelmate Jolie Holland has a great album on Anti called "Escondida" which sets a mood similar to "Tiny Voices" but with far better results. December 13, 2006

 Fantastic
Wow, what an amazing album. Full of passion and romance, by far my fave Joe Henry album. Definitely worth the money. February 25, 2006

 VERY OVERRATED
Critics and record store clerks are going gaga over this album, but I just don't hear it. Henry creates layered soundscapes, but rather than reward repeat listens, they aggravate the listener--at least this listener. The more I listen to this album, the less I like it.

His lyrics are crafty and clever in places, but they don't provide deep insight. How many times do we have to listen to more-alienated-than-thou singer-songwriters lament the loss of innocence in our corrupt modern world. This would have been edgy stuff in 1991, but today it sounds trite. Henry's delivery makes it worse. I can see him dressed in black smoking clove cigarettes, pretending to be serious but really looking down the sundress of a young suburban acolyte.

January 1, 2006

 Where is he going?
Love Joe, but he's off in a new direction, does it well, but, miss the old style. This is more jazz and Im not sure that is a good genre for him. September 23, 2005

 A world in itself.
This album is tremendous. But was there ever a lazier adjective than "jazzy?"
Alot of people fawned over the "jazz"-stylings of his album SCAR, but TINY VOICES is where he outstrips all hints of genre-exercise and reaches the place he's been travelling towards his whole career. It both defines and transcends his oeuvre. TINY VOICES, like his previous two albums is soul music.
Impossible to listen to except in it's entirety; with perhaps two exceptions I have never been so immediately and lastingly touched and thrilled by an album as with TINY VOICES. August 27, 2005

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