Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 07/21/2009
Run Time: 34:56
Tom Rapp's last album for over a quarter of a century, released in 1973 just before he left
pop music to become a civil rights lawyer in Philadelphia, doesn't have the cracked
acid-folk majesty of his two
ESP-Disk releases or the haunting delicacy of his four
Reprise albums (all released under the name
Pearls Before Swine, though
Sunforest's cover painting shows
Rapp sporting a
Pearls Before Swine button, it was released as a solo album). Yet although
Sunforest is easily the weakest of
Rapp's albums, it still has much to recommend it.
Rapp is a gifted, intelligent lyricist with a streak of wry humor (check the bittersweet closer
"Sunshine and Charles": "She was 16 when she met Jesus/He was the Puerto Rican kid who lived next door/They got married and they loved each other/Up until the day they didn't anymore") and a storytelling talent both fanciful and sharp. The surprising
calypso lilt of the joyous opener
"Comin' Back" sounds like
Van Dyke Parks'
Discover America, which had come out the year before, but most of the rest of the album stays in the styles
Rapp had explored on his earlier records. There are lengthy, mystical
ballads like the title track; desolate and haunted tunes like
"Forbidden City"; and the puckish
"Love/Sex," a forceful reply to
Stephen Stills' "dig my swingin' ways" load of horseflop
"Love the One You're With." Nearly all the songs are worthwhile (though
Rapp justifiably dismisses the negligible
"Someplace to Belong" in the CD reissue's liner notes), and only the less interesting than usual production keeps this from being a top-drawer
Rapp release.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
;)
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