Independent (UK): Four Stars to T Bone Burnett's Abundantly Pleasurable New Album

"Despite the competing claims" from today's hottest producers, says The Independent's Andy Gill, "T Bone Burnett may be the most interesting producer working in popular music at the moment." And after a successful string of blockbuster producing gigs, from the O Brother Where Art Thou? and Walk the Line soundtracks to last year's Raising Sand pairing of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, with whom he is currently touring, T Bone is now set to release Tooth of Crime, his Nonesuch debut, this Tuesday. It's the result of a different sort of collaborative effort, with playwright Sam Shepard, who asked T Bone to write songs for the New York production of his play The Tooth of Crime (Second Dance) a dozen years back, from which the album's tracks evolved.

The album, writes Gill, features "ghostly echoes of tambourine and twang, and the subdued lowing of mournful horns" in arrangements possessing "great depth and diverse character." Although the reviewer wishes for more sung vocals from T Bone, he praises Tooth of Crime as a modern-day "update of the jazz 'n' poetry format," through which lens the album's "abundant pleasures become apparent."

To read the review, visit independent.co.uk.

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Click here to pre-order T Bone's Tooth of Crime CD for $16 and download the album MP3s, at no extra charge, on release day, May 13.