Local boy Marcus Wolf, Wolf for short, builds his pop songs on very common footing, like a funky Ani DiFranco bass/drums platform, then plugs in his acoustic guitars and gives them the hard strum. And then he sings them in a slightly melodramatic, if not unappealing way. This second LP (following 1999’s Seaside) is somewhat standard singer-songwriter fare in its lyrical bent as well. Kyler England’s frequent backing vocals are a little Sheryl Crow and Tracy Bonham for my tastes, and one often wishes he would give that acoustic some other kind of tone than the ching-a-ching he keeps playing. But his band can really play, the arrangements are nicely rendered and involved, and at his best, on the more folkie title track (here’s a direction he should go into more) and the piano-enlivened “wish” he even reminds faintly of Gordon Lightfoot.

Jack Rabid

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