James Jackson Toth: Tahlia Harbour, Jexie Lynn Toth, Andy Cabic, Carla Bozulich (vocals); Jarvis Taveniere (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Shayde Sartin (acoustic guitar, bass guitar); Jason Quever (electric guitar, piano, Wurlitzer organ); Nels Cline, John Dieterich (electric guitar); Steve Fisk (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Wurlitzer piano); Otto Hauser (vibraphone, drums, percussion).
After a number of excellent, though occasionally meandering, releases under names like Wooden Wand & The Sky High Band and Vanishing Voices, James Jackson Toth finally emerges from beneath the murk of his multiple pseudonyms to bring us WAITING IN VAIN, an accomplished collection of scuffed-up roots rock that delivers on the considerable promise of his early work. Toth's songwriting has always been one of his strong points; tunes like the fatalistic "Doreen" and the dust blown "Do What You Can" draw from the loss-struck balladry of Townes Van Zandt and the classic song structures of Memphis Soul in equal measure. The production is clean and uncomplicated but also manages to retain the atmosphere of dread-haunted weirdness that made Toth's Wooden Wand efforts so compelling.
Professional Reviews
Spin (p.112) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[With] 'Look In on Me,' a soul-drenched slow-burner that, in five-plus minutes, captures Toth's knack for Southern sensibility and beatific sloth..."
Alternative Press (p.151) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "Toth's early freak-folk experimentalism has subsided, giving way to a lithe, rootsy amble..."
CMJ - "Toth's first solo record is 49 minutes of wistful, whimsical, though methodically sparse alt-country."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.109) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "WAITING IN VAIN mines a harmony-rich seam of sticky-fingered country rock and blue-sky FM pop....[His] hard-luck narratives stay true to this wayard backwoods aesthetic."
