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| Latimesblogs |
 Wasn't the singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston always pretty much middle-aged? Midwestern and spectacularly unflashy, apparently born with a receding hairline, the Kansas-born, Hoboken-launched singer-songwriter won critics' hearts and some fame in the early 1990s with intensely crafted songs about adulthood's curveballs: rebound romances, gambling losses, the drudgery of doing time for crimes of the heart. When he hit a slump a decade ago, the grind of being a mid-level artist was partly to blame. But it also seemed that Johnston was bored with his subject matter, having grown up too soon. "Rain on the City" is Johnston's first collection of new songs in eight years, and in that time he's hit midlife for real. The crisis, in all its mundanity, suits him. Forty-nine now, he's mastered the urge to startle that often made earlier songs (like the murderer's tale "This Perfect World" or the gambler's roundelay "The Lucky One") feel a bit like O. Henry stories -- surprise ending, folks! "Rain on the City's" songs tend to be plainer, offering insights that hit with a softer, more lingering impact. Some of Johnston's setups still force listeners to puzzle over their deeper meanings -- "Venus Is Her Name" plays coy with its scenario of an ex encountered on an airplane, and "Lonely Penny" hints at the creepy side of chance encounters. But most have a directness that complements Johnston's singular gift for metaphors....full text |
| Ew |
| Though Freedy Johnston's This Perfect World was one of the best CDs of the '90s, the ''Bad Reputation'' guy has barely maintained any rep lately. (His last disc of new songs was in 2001.) Johnston had been tinkering with Rain on the City for years, yet it doesn't betray any fussiness: Character studies don't get more minimalist than ''Lonely Penny,'' a sonnet to a coin on the sidewalk, or ''The Kind of Love We're In,'' a deceptively sunny bossa nova about a love's impending failure. Your gratitude for his economical writing may overcome your wonderment over why something so modest took so long. B+...full text |
| Spin |
| As he has for two decades, singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston plays the unreliable narrator in this exquisitely unsettling folk-rock collection. Take "Lonely Penny," with its hymnlike harmonium and untrustworthy guy telling his conquest that "it was arranged in the stars we should meet," and cue shivers. In "Livin' Too Close to the Rio Grande," another scammer riffs about "the wife, the ex, and the government." The title track may drift by, gentle and painterly, but Johnston's characters always make a deep impression. You won't budge until their riveting, capricious raps are over....full text |
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