Devendra Banhart Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Cany CD

Like its predecessor CRIPPLE CROW, SMOKEY ROLLS DOWN THUNDER CANYON finds freak-folk figurehead Devendra Banhart expanding his musical palette to new heights of eclecticism. Acoustic folk, augmented by stream-of-consciousness lyrics and Banhart's seductive quaver, is still the main ingredient on this collection of tunes, but an assortment of styles--including samba, klezmer, music hall, gospel, soul, jazz, rock, and pop balladry--make their way into the mix.

At first listen, Banhart's intensely willful variety might seem distracting, and at times the album does bite off more than it can chew. On the whole, however, SMOKEY is unified in tone. Recorded in Banhart's Topanga Canyon studio in the hills of Santa Monica, home of historic recording sessions by Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and other icons of folk-rock, SMOKEY floats with the hazy feel of early 1970s California, especially on shimmering acoustic gems ("Seaside") or tunes that draw on gospel and country ("Saved").Rolling Stone (p.71) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[H]ere his music has a renewed sense of wide-open space....His lyrics are just clouds passing through the sky, and his melodies are trees to climb."
Rolling Stone (p.111) - Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Top Albums of the Year 2007".
Spin (p.108) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Hushed, delicate ballads like 'Cristobal' and 'So Long Old Bean' sound like nobody else..."
Entertainment Weekly (p.106) - "[A] sprawling collection of psych-rock gems, sweet Spanish ditties, and ambitious sonic experiments." -- Grade: B+
Q (p.104) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "'So Long Old Bean' quivers like prime English psychedelia and Freely is a luminous pastoral ballad..."
Uncut (p.80) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "SMOKEY...introduces a more complex Banhart....'Freely' is as good a song as he's ever written, actually -- a musically mature relative of 'Heard Somebody Say' from CRIPPLE CROW."
Alternative Press (p.174) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "'Saved' is full-on gospel; 'Lover' sounds like disco as John Lennon would have understood it; and 'Tonada Yanomamonista' rocks like the Doors as produced by Ennio Morricone."
Magnet (p.91) - "Banhart still spins the type of delicate, fragile folk that captivated us in the first place, though now he's more likely to layer psychedelic atmospherics or link it to Tropicalia."
No Depression (p.95) - "[I]t comes across as a thoroughly envisioned and executed work, maybe even a classic."