The Sad Riders - Lay Your Head On The Soft Rock

I can’t decide if it is weirder that there is an emo-punk band from Switzerland (Favez) or that their lead singer (Chris “The Sad Rider” Wickey) decided to make a solo singer/songwriter album of alt-country tunes. Since I don’t really know anything about Favez other than their funny name and country of origin, it’s impossible to make a well-founded decision. So I guess it will just have to remain a mystery. The songs off of Lay Your Head… are based around Chris’s voice and acoustic guitar with a sprinkle of organ here and there. The tunes are nice, but they aren’t really great. When it comes down to just someone playing a guitar, there has to be either really clever lyrics (ie. The Mountain Goats), impressive guitar playing (ie Kaki King), or really interesting vocals (ie. Devendra Banhart). Unfortunately for Wickey, none of these things seem to be his forte. The lyrics as well as the delivery are pretty pedestrian, leaving the CD as good but not really great. There is promise to the album though. Shades of Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen circa Nebraska rear their head on songs "The Plains and the High Roads" and "The Radio Man," but he still has a long way to go before selling out Yankee Stadium for a few nights in a row. To be fair, I have been listening to a ton of amazing folk/alt-country/acoustic based rock recently (Banhart, Uncle Tupelo, The Byrds) so Lay Your Head… had a lot to live up to. It’s not that bad, and it does show promise, which is pretty amazing when you consider it’s the solo alt-country debut from the lead singer of a Swiss emo-punk band. [www.thesadriders.com]