Toronto Globe: 3 out of 4 Stars No Better Than This Review
Toronto Globe By Brad Wheeler
“Save some time for the songs you sing and the music that you’ve made.” On Save Some Time to Dream, the shuffling opening track to John Mellencamp’s interesting, retro-sounding new album of roots music, the American singer-songwriter offers sound non-denominational advice. You should listen. Mellencamp no longer considers himself a “rock star” (his term), but his status allowed him to record in mono 13 thoughtful, rough-and-ready new songs with producer T Bone Burnett at significant locations – at Memphis’s Sun Studio, at a Georgia church, at a Texas hotel room where bluesman Robert Johnson once worried about hellhounds on his trail. Like Johnson, the raspy-voiced Mellencamp considers mortality. On the easy-strummed Clumsy Ol’ World, he ponders the incongruities of life. And on Dream, he wonders if all that we have now is all that there is. Think about that the next time you’re suckin’ on that chili dog down at the Tastee Freez.
“Save some time for the songs you sing and the music that you’ve made.” On Save Some Time to Dream, the shuffling opening track to John Mellencamp’s interesting, retro-sounding new album of roots music, the American singer-songwriter offers sound non-denominational advice. You should listen. Mellencamp no longer considers himself a “rock star” (his term), but his status allowed him to record in mono 13 thoughtful, rough-and-ready new songs with producer T Bone Burnett at significant locations – at Memphis’s Sun Studio, at a Georgia church, at a Texas hotel room where bluesman Robert Johnson once worried about hellhounds on his trail. Like Johnson, the raspy-voiced Mellencamp considers mortality. On the easy-strummed Clumsy Ol’ World, he ponders the incongruities of life. And on Dream, he wonders if all that we have now is all that there is. Think about that the next time you’re suckin’ on that chili dog down at the Tastee Freez.