Western Stars Review

The reference points are stated openly: the lush orchestrated pop that came out of California around 1970, all french horn and swelling strings and a lead vocal placed dead centre. It is a genuinely surprising thing for him to attempt at seventy and he commits to it completely. Thirteen songs about drifters, most of them character studies, most of them men who have run out of road. The Wayfarer and Hello Sunshine are beautiful.

Drive Fast is about a stunt performer counting his own broken bones and is the best lyric on the album. Where it falls short of the top rank is variety: the tempo barely changes across fifty minutes, the arrangements use similar colours, and the characters start to blur because they all want roughly the same thing. Lovely to have on and hard to remember afterwards. Still, it is the most beautiful sounding album in his catalogue and the only late one that tries something genuinely new.