Nine years removed from the demise of the Violent Femmes, erstwhile head Femme Gordon Gano has left his past as a folk-punk godfather behind, both literally (Femmes classic “Blister in the Sun” is now a Wendy’s commercial jingle) and musically, via his latest artistic incarnation as the frontman for Gordon Gano and the Ryans. Under the Sun, the fruit of a years-long, postal service-assisted collaboration with former Bogmen Brendan and Billy Ryan, provides Gano’s grating adenoidal whine with a thicker, more colorful musical backdrop than it usually enjoys – which is nice, certainly, but what would make it nicer is a set of uniformly solid songs. Now 46, Gano is still most effective when plumbing the depths of rock & roll whimsy, and when the band dares to be stupid here – as on “Way That I Creep” and “Oholah Oholibah” – Under the Sun can be a lot of fun despite his extreme vocal limitations. Too much of the album, however, gets – pardon the pun – bogged down in melody-deficient ponderousness to hold much interest. Femmes loyalists will probably miss the acidic bite of Gano’s earlier work, but there’s no denying this new partnership offers sonic vistas far more expansive than those offered by his better-known band. With enough time and some stronger material, it might just give him something interesting to do with all that Wendy’s money. (Yep Roc 2009)
