From Good Homes
Take Enough Home

(Bos)

First Appeared at The Music Box, November 2002, Volume 9, #11

Written by John Metzger

It’s always sad to see one’s favorite band pack it in and move on to other things, and there’s little doubt that From Good Homes left its numerous East Coast followers a bit dismayed when the group held its farewell concert in August 1999. Fortunately for its fans, there is plenty of material sitting in the band’s vaults, and its latest release Take Enough Home serves as the first installment in a promising new series of concert recordings. Of course, there’s no better place to start than with From Good Home’s farewell concert, the highlights of which appear on this new album.

Most notable is the head-spinning, open-ended jam Where Songs Begin. The appropriately titled tune’s snaky guitars, shimmering keyboards, soaring saxophone, and serpentine rhythms slip and slide in an organically primal dance that borrows the Grateful Dead’s stylistic approach, if not its sound. Not surprisingly, just a few years prior to its demise, From Good Homes tagged along on the Fall tour of Bob Weir’s Ratdog, and the fit proved to be a natural one. After all, From Good Homes took a similar, albeit more pop-influenced approach to music — mixing jazz, bluegrass, and Dylan-esque folk much like the Grateful Dead had done for decades.

If anything, however, Take Enough Home highlights the songwriting prowess of frontman Todd Sheaffer. He’s since gone on to lead Railroad Earth — a band that’s certainly bound for many great things — to two stellar albums, but his contributions to From Good Homes demonstrated his early knack for penning solid lyrics, even if some of them also lacked the maturity of his later projects. That’s not to say that there aren’t some choice nuggets here — Boulevard of Dreams is a tender selection of hopes lost and found that is underscored beautifully by saxophonist Dan Myers, while Scudder’s Lane takes on a Celtic lilt that marries The Waterboys with Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. Fortunately, whenever the lyrics do falter, the music more than picks up the slack, allowing the band’s tight-knit infusion of jammed-out, jazzy pop to lead the way. Indeed, Take Enough Home doesn’t always represent the finest moments of From Good Homes’ career, but it does at least show that the end was a fun-filled occasion — more joyful celebration than somber requiem.

Take Enough Home is available from Barnes & Noble.
To order, Click Here!

Ratings

1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 2002 The Music Box