Silver Jews, "Lookout Mountain, Loookout Sea"

Billboard

On Silver Jews' "Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea" lead Jew David Berman channels his inner Shel Silverstein, serving up a set of shiny, country-fried children's songs for adults. Berman's back from the brink and instead of looking inward, he spends much of these 35 minutes proffering colorful moral fables that confront America's obsession with the superficial. At the center of his tales stand party barges, candy jails and "longtime guzzler[s] of hydrogenated crap." But fanciful settings, odd protagonists and smart-as-a-whip rhymes notwithstanding, there is a wispy, twee quality to many of these songs, and ultimately the most affecting are those that sport the emotional and anthemic heft of the best Jews material, especially the wry yet achingly lonely "Suffering Jukebox" and the darkly dreamy "My Pillow Is the Threshold." A warm, enjoyable effort, but perhaps short on the Jews' best asset: Berman himself.