Title: A trip through the Verdun countryside
Review: This album is quite amazing, really. With its rich mixture of styles, some of which possibly being thrown together for the first time, it sounds like Enya meeting Tesla in a dark alley in Ho Chi Minh City. But that still doesn't account for the covers of "Stand By Your Man", with its surprising male vocal, or a half-speed "Purple Haze", which are both entertaining but in understandably disparate ways. Innovation is not the only benchmark here, though. Neal Barnard's electric guitar sears and sings and is in the same class as some of the best axemen today. Martha Roebuck's voice is positively ethereal, and it would be a mistake to call Mike Stetina's drumming anything less than dynamic. He seems to have all the tools. 'Verdun' is not an easy transition if you've just played some AC/DC, but it should be given a chance on its own. It's a wild and welcome departure.
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