about the devil, the wind and the sea

Listening to the new "Cheers For Twenty Years" convinced me "at last" to review detailed now all four outputs of Rainman, saying a big thank you for so much music from which a lot of those songs became friends of mine. I want to feed back a little after the "long-term use" of them.

Rainman is one of the most "sweet" singing vocalists and "by the way" using - if necessary - brutal reality facing words. His guitar-play varies from dynamic sensitive to straight forwards and he has a nose for a fine song plot in harmonics, adding synth, rhythms or voices and telling a story, but leaving out the fairy tales. So, get infected of his music by nearly every song!

"about the devil, the wind and the sea"

1. white lies
An easy listening song starting the halve hour, fine duet with the female voice.
But for my taste there is too much exciting/phasing/chorus-FX on the guitar, especially on the 2nd. With time this made me rather skipping it.

2. rubber ring
Here´s one of his plain-spoken spotlighting an obviously avoided issue shrouded in fine acoustic pop song. *Bam!* Sweet slapping!
The female voice could be a little brighter or have its own reverberation.

3. an idiot
Superb appearance of the second guitar an the organ! Going on in the song three different key sounds are a little too kittenish for me.

4. early sommer love affair
Here he draws a story everyone has experienced and there is enough space to fill in your own details. Takes you back in time each time!
Fine sound, structure and instrumentation – all best! I really like the style of the voice-line in the refrain, I caught myself often humming this in the shower. A real BIG Rainman-Song.

5. thoughts
An exclamation mark song in dealing with the the all-day madness. Straight words, I hope everyone started - at least some little - "deeds" after "thoughts", ending the just nodding in agreement.
But too much exciter on gits, drives its acoustic a little out.

6. homesick song
This one captures for me yearning and avoiding a loved but denied "something". Unexpected and authentic all-over sound in the refrain. A nice "to explore" and the most surprising song on the album. Nowadays I can´t get the picture of Depp standing on the bridge in "Sweeney Todd" out of my mind...

7. Save me
I can´t help, the sand shaker honky tonky sound gives me a "Stones"-feeling, the phasing guitar an antipode, I always get lost in it where it will go to... I see it as a counterpoint to the other songs.
The suddenly missing 2nd guitar makes the refrain a little thin.

8. your mother says
Again a nice story to remind younger days. Great dynamic and arrangement, the e-guitar could have deserved more real tube – but forget about those analysis. Going to swim in the picture which has been drawn not only by words. To end the album with this song let me often press play again!

Thank you for the wounderful moments I had with all of your music!