One Part Lullaby

Thickly constructed, melodically rich, and thoroughly well-conceived, Barlow and fellow Implosionist John Davis have concocted a true '90s guitar pop album.

Having scored a minor hit with a track that appeared on the Kids soundtrack, the group now has a big-label deal and a hip new style--still recognizably moody and tentative, but with enough down-tempo beats and electronic knob-tweaking to drift into trip-hop territory.

One Part Lullaby's chugging, folk/soul interface and tagged-on beats has a more natural flow than before ... He's still proffering those cryptic, jittery asides ("one part lullaby, two parts fear" in the title track), but at least Lou Barlow's music sounds relaxed these days.

Parts of One Part Lullaby work very well, but it's also curiously flat. The modern rock production feels two years out of date -- shiny and commercial for 1996-1997, but an anomaly in 1999. ... That's not to say One Part Lullaby is a failure -- when Barlow and Davis pull it all together, the results are as strong as anything else the duo has recorded. As a whole, however, it winds up being strangely unengaging.

While early Folk Implosion albums were almost tuneless, ramshackle affairs, this latest effort builds on the crystalline pop gems found on "Dare to Be Surprised" (1997). From the sounds of it, anarchy's getting friendlier and friendlier all the time.

While the result does contribute to a homogenization of this project and Sebadoh, Barlow's "other band," One Part Lullaby is nonetheless a beautiful, well-crafted LP that proves the songwriter to be an artist who can mature in the world of modern rock & roll and still remain vital.

Barlow and partner John Davis conjure a faux-naive summer-of-love vibe that's arch and seductive. If ''nature is the enemy,'' here's to keeping it unreal.

That's the tenor of One Part Lullaby, a CD that takes sardonic low-fi minimalism and makes it into transcendentally tinny pop. Lullaby lilts and entices without losing its smirk.

Everything about Folk Implosion’s One Part Lullaby admits to coming-of-age. The Lou Barlow /John Davis indie side project has gone major label; its so "lo-fi" sound has turned lush, and the adenoidal adolescent complaints have, if not completely matured, at least become more accepting of life’s cycle.

This is so pretty it's almost a poem about quiet lyricism--and so passive you want to put crystal meth in its apple juice.

One Part Lullaby's songs are the ones a man writes when he realizes he doesn't have to be bummed out forever, the music a person makes when he can afford to trade in his four track for a home studio complete with Pro-Tools and some swanky electronics. Most of all, this is the kind of record a guy makes when he spends a lot of time tooling down the freeway with Beck on the stereo and the sun in his eyes.