This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
The key word in the title of Fred Eaglesmith’s new third album is Odd.
As he always has, this Ontario farmboy (who once issued his own box set consisting of a hand-made mini-crate holding two cassettes) continues to forge his own idiosyncratic path that leads between the junkshop and the jukebox. On the one hand, his songs draw on so many obvious influences — Chris Isaak’s rockabilly crooning, Bruce Springsteen / Bob Dylan / Woody Guthrie’s Okie ballads, Neil Young’s everything — that the tunes are instantly familiar. But then he subjects them to tape effects, angular Tom Waits treatments and clattering percussion, creating weird hybrids that manage to be rustic, contemporary and ahead of their time all at once. It may not be worth $50, but this is easily worth the price of the CD.
