A Beautiful Winter

Having brought grunge to the world as the lead guitarist and resident Billy Childish advocate for Mudhoney, you would likely expect that Steve Turner's solo record would Bring The Rock in a big and sloppy way...but as it happens, you would be wrong. To the probable surprise of most of his fans, Turner's sophomore solo release A Beautiful Winter sounds more like Richard Buckner than anyone else; comprised of spare and emotionally downbeat folk-rock, this nine-cut EP starts out with a bit of oddball noise manipulation (with some help from former Headcoat Bruce Brand), but the rest of the songs conjure up the mood of a lonely February afternoon, with subdued guitar lines and quavering vocals from Turner. As it happens, Turner writes better in this format than one might expect, and several of the performances resonate with genuine emotional impact, especially "The Parting Glass," the title cut, and a cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Nothin'." But while Turner makes a pretty good Richard Buckner, he sounds like he's still trying carving out a unique musical identity for himself as a solo act; he's to be congratulated for not rehashing his work with Mudhoney for this disc, but hopefully somewhere down the line he'll come up with an album of his own that's as original as, say, Touch Me I'm Sick, Rovi