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Since leaving A&M in the mid-‘90s, David Wilcox has jumped from KOCH to Vanguard to What Are Records? – but he’s still managed to release an album about every two years, which is as much a testament to his prolificacy as it is to his devoted fanbase. Problem is, Wilcox has been pacing the same patch of dirt since at least 2000’s What You Whispered; where his albums were once artful examples of how far a talented songwriter could push the boundaries of folk both musically and lyrically, they’ve slowly devolved into regularly timed collections of the sort of frustratingly shallow and/or didactic observations you can hear on any weeknight in coffee shops around the country. Early classics like 1991’s Home Again found him using his capo to wrestle with demons and explore universal truths, but all he ever seems to do anymore is mug for and/or preach to his choir. Airstream is pleasantly free of the slick-surfaced sheen that plagued 2003’s Into the Mystery and 2005’s Vista, but that’s chiefly because of the fact that it was recorded solo in Wilcox’s – wait for it – Airstream trailer. The songs are sometimes funny, sometimes sentimental, and always pretty, but Wilcox has done all this before, and better. Dialing back the production is a step in the right direction, but he still sounds like he needs to recharge his batteries and start digging a little deeper for his material. Fans will enjoy Airstream, no doubt, but they’ll be hard-pressed to put a finger on anything it adds to what came before it. (LABEL: What Are Records? 2008)
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