Kevn Kinney (from Think About It

Kevn Kinney (from Think About It

Kevn Kinney (from Think About It on Drivin And Cryin Records) (By Lee Zimmerman)

Best known as the somewhat eccentric frontman for the Athens Georgia-based Drivin N Cryin, Kevn Kinney has never been an artist who’s easily typecast. Consequently, the aptly-titled Think About It, Kinney’s first solo outing in a decade, comes across as a sprawling spectacle of sound and aural imagery, a varied pastiche featuring styles that range from the serene to the surreal. Kinney has ample help in bringing it all to fruition, courtesy of an all-star group of collaborators that includes REM’s Peter Buck and Bill Berry, Brad Morgan of Drive-By Truckers, Laur Joamets, a veteran of Drivin N Cryin, Midland, and Sturgill Simpson’s backing band, and, perhaps most notably, producer David Barbe.
 
Barbe’s presence alone ensures a certain amount of swagger and subterfuge, from the snaking rhythms of the title track and the hipster jive and nocturnal imbroglio of “Shapeshifter Grifter” to the flute-infused, Lou-Reed-like mystique within “Down in the City” and the more assertive strains of the dark and demonstrative “Another Scarlet Butterfly”. Inspired in part by the passing of Kinney’s friend and mentor, Col. Bruce Hampton, the album comes across as bold and demonstrative. The lethargic drift of “Close the Door” brings an unsettled sense of solitude, which still manages to find a compatible fit with the spookier sensibilities of “The Innocent” and the mysterious meandering approach taken in the otherwise introspective “Catching Up to Myself”. It’s a fascinating assortment of sounds, but one that never fails to deliver absolute enticement all along the way.
 
That’s not to say every offering takes an unexpected turn. “Stop Look Listen Think” is a rousing entreaty that urges its listeners to do everything the title suggests. “Wishes” is a lovely string-laden ballad that’s surprisingly sedate by Kinney standards. Closing track “Never the Twain Shall Meet” is performed entirely acapella, laying bare a prescient perspective on life and largess. All in all, Think About It is absolutely as thoughtful as its name implies, and given Kevn Kinney’s intuition and imagination, one would expect nothing less.  (by Lee Zimmerman)
 
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