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With the lazy weariness of Tom Waits and the inflection of John Lennon, Mason makes every line he sings something worth listening to, something worth remembering. And when this is coupled with songs that can already stand strongly on their own, it makes for a pretty commanding album.
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UncutWeathered and intelligent, these songs resonate like folk antiquities from another age. Even more remarkably, they never sound forced. [Apr 2007, p.116]
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MojoIts predominantly midtempo, cleverly crafted pop-Americana sounds even more substantial. [Apr 2007, p.97]
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Q MagazineMasterful and poignant, it reveals Mason to be a heavyweight talent. [Apr 2007, p.119]
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The songs aren't in a hurry to stray beyond mid-tempo and occasionally the production is stodgy... Ultimately though it is a beautiful melancholic album.
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There's no sonic arsenal, nothing to make you sit and check your ears, just gentle, simple songs that sound like the laments of a sad generation.
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Paste MagazineThese songs are more melodically direct, sonically dynamic and lyrically probing. [Apr 2007, p.60]
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Mason displays promise, but with limited range vocally and echoes of Ben Harper, Los Lobos, and John Hiatt in his song-craft, he hasn't hit one squarely out of the park yet.
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One of the most downcast albums of 2007.
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Here, as on 2004's Where the Humans Eat, he posits himself as a man of the road whose sole possessions are a handful of albums, all of which were made in the mid-to-late Sixties. Pleasingly, however, he abides by his own rules.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 12
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Mixed: 1 out of 12
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Negative: 1 out of 12
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erlingoMay 13, 2007i love this kind of amrericana, this voice of a young man. Buy it.
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LukeMMay 11, 2007
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LeighHMar 30, 2007This lyrical genius is the Bob Dylan of our generation. Riptide is a soothing melody of his hometown friends.