Things Change (Leaps Recordings, 2002)

Bob Chaney, aka Lonesome Bob, continues to be an interesting synthesis ofhis influences and experiences with his new album. Bob's Jersey upbringing led him naturally to Bruce Springsteen, evidenced in the heartbreaking American rock of "Dreaming the Lie" and the title track, while his teenage country band membership informs everything he does, especially the cagily authentic "I Get Smarter Every Drink."

Although he's lived in Nashville since 1994, Bob's songs about lost love and creeping dissatisfaction are more subversive and subtle than the calculating drivelthat passes for country music these days, and when Lonesome Bob gets really close to a song, count on a ride measured on the Richter scale. The double whammy of"Dying Breed," a mournful tale of familial addiction, and the draining"Where Are You Tonight?," a howling primal scream that finds him wrestlingwith the 1998 death of his teenage son show just how far down into himselfLonesome Bob will dig for inspiration. Lonesome Bob may not be moving big units inNashville, but he's setting an impossibly high creative standard.