Blurry Blue Mountain

If Giant Sand had released fewer great albums, Blurry Blue Mountain would sound something close to miraculous. As it is, it's a worthy addition to a catalogue which was already embarrassed with riches.

Rich, detailed, and poetic, Blurry Blue Mountain explores human emotion and the meaning of life like the great writers of old. Gelb has been around a long time, and on the basis of this he will be for a long time to come.

The countryesque simplicity of many of these songs only asserts Gelb's standing as an alternative to mainstream country music, whether he likes the position or not.

Suffice to say that Blurry Blue Mountain is a lovely, oddly charming record. And in the unlikely event that it doesn't move you, there's a whole heap of past glories just waiting to be discovered.

Blurry Blue Mountain is an album full of heart, soul, and wit, and this music confirms that no one does quite what Howe Gelb can do with such remarkably innate grace and feel; Gelb's songs find pretty remarkable things in the odd details of simple lives, and there some very real magic to be found in the elegant force of Blurry Blue Mountain.

Blurry Blue Mountain is another late career album that falls in the 'good enough to listen to, not quite hot enough to buy' category. The highlights will bolster their setlists, the rest will clog up your hard drive.

The actual music on Blurry Blue Mountain, however, is warm and enveloping.

If you're willing to make the time, though, Blurry Blue Mountain will repay your attention.

Blurry Blue Mountain is a cozy, enjoyable listen-though perhaps a little too long-and Gelb comes off like a cool uncle, happy to nod sagely while we sit around and listen to his stories.

So he has plenty of fun with it, but much of this album, which is being bundled with a reissue of the very first full-length Valley Of Rain, finds Gelb a bit...glum. [Year end 2010, p.72]

The follow-up To 2008's ProVisions is another fine addition to his cannon. [Dec 2010, p.109]

Picking through Blurry Blue Mountain in stages, there is evidently a decent fistful of individually strong moments but taken as a whole its meandering, undemonstrative nature does make it feel like a somewhat makeweight collection; one that will appeal to few people beyond the existing Giant Howe fanbase.