Coyote Run Pleads the Fifth

There's no doubt that Coyote Run can play their instruments well, and they can cover a variety of styles, from Celtic (a very wide term) to country to rock & roll. They have the chops and the interest. The problem comes with the delivery. There's a flatness to the performances, which may just be the recording, but they come across more as if they're simply running through a repertoire without much passion. There's a good selection of covers, both of traditional and more modern material (anyone who's delved enough to find "Oak & Ash & Thorn" is doing something right), but the jazz of "Bye Bye Blues/Bill Bailey" actually stands out like a sore thumb against the rest of the material, incongruous and not that much fun. The original songs are competent, with a couple of standouts in "Dragon of Cabo San Lucas" and "Glory's Call" (although the lyrics for that come from Robert Lewis Stevenson). For the most part, though, this seems to be just going through the paces. There's no sense of fire about it all, which is a shame.