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Eliot Morris
What's Mine Is Yours
(Universal/Motown)
First Appeared in The Music Box, August 2006, Volume 13, #8
Written by John Metzger
In the wake of Counting Crows’ blockbuster debut August and Everything
After, the marketplace was flooded with an overabundance of Adam Duritz
imitators, all of whom attempted but failed to walk the fine line between being
too polite and too overwrought. For a time, even Counting Crows began to stray
into territory that was safe, comfortable, cuddly, and inordinately bland. For
proof, one need look no further than Accidentally in Love, its
contribution to, of all things, the Shrek 2 soundtrack. Now that the band
has dusted off a three-year old concert for its latest salvo New Amsterdam:
Live at Heineken Music Hall and set its sights upon making a comeback,
however, it somehow seems fitting that the group’s return to the charts would be
challenged by the next generation of songwriters. After all, the 13 years that
have passed since August and Everything After was released is a lifetime
in the music business.
In effect, What’s Mine Is Yours, the major label debut by
up-and-coming artist Eliot Morris, taps into the same soulful spirit of
Americana that Counting Crows once called its own. In fact, on tracks like
The Infancy of Us, No One Has to Know, and Will She Ever Love
Again?, Morris sounds like a dead-ringer for Duritz. Yet, rather than
slipping into pale imitation, he brandishes the same emotionally charged
exuberance that has kept Counting Crows’ endeavors afloat. Better still, when
Morris’ heart-on-his-sleeve delivery is joined by the seductively ethereal
vocals of his female accompanists (Inara George, Sara Watkins, Bekka Bramlett,
Gemma Hayes, and Lisa Germano), the material gains both intimacy and resonance.
During the latter portion of I Will Try, for example, George perfectly
plays the role of Sinead O’Connor to Morris’ Peter Gabriel, and together the duo
salvage a song that, for a moment, seemed destined to stumble.
Nevertheless, scattered throughout What’s Mine Is Yours, there are a
few tracks — This Colorful World and Fault Line, among them — on
which the melodies and arrangements never quite become as overpoweringly
intoxicating as they should. Yet, laced with the aching cries that David Lindley
coaxes from his guitar, songs such as the irresistibly bubbly Balancing the
World and the hard-driving The Moment You Believe fully achieve the
cathartic transcendence for which they strive. Where Morris goes from here is
anyone’s guess, of course, but if he remains as genuine as he sounds on the bulk
of What’s Mine Is Yours, he ought to be able to carve out his own niche
without succumbing to mediocrity.  ½
What's Mine Is Yours is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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