Vic Chesnutt: Silver Lake

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * * *)

Despite his unpromising name, Vic Chesnutt from Athens, Georgia, is one of the finest singer-songwriters working in that slightly melancholy, poetic and edgy area of Americana.

Wheelchair-bound after a car accident in '83, he started to read poetry and brought that to his love of pop music. REM's Michael Stipe produced his first two albums and in '96, after four albums, he was the subject of a tribute album Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation with Sparklehorse, REM, Garbage and Kristin Hersh lining up to record his songs.

He's well connected - Billy Bob Thornton got him a small part in Slingblade, he's recorded with Emmylou Harris, and with Bob Mould on a Gram Parsons' tribute album - and his albums bristle with a ragged glory, rough-hewn melodies, and his distinctively burred delivery.

His Silver Lake is another gem coloured by wurlitzer, nylon-string guitar and unpolished sounds from fellow travellers in this literate world such as drummer Mike Stinson, pedal steel guitarist Doug Pettibone, bassist Daryl Johnson and others who have worked with Lucinda Williams, the Neville Brothers and Dylan.

Together they pull out an admirable diversity of styles: Stay Inside is a moody ballad over scouring Crazy Horse-like rock (a sound which returns on the Dylanesque 2nd Floor); there's a big-hearted pop ballad in Fa-La-La (about hope in psychiatric hospital); Band Camp is a wry narrative of love, sex and ageing; Styrofoam and In My Way, Yes are typically gorgeous Chesnutt ballads, but each takes a skewed view of their subjects.

Atmospheric, emotional, dark, musing and amusing, and much recommended.

Label: New West/Elite