Album Reviews

Best known for singing ‘fuck authority’ and ‘whoa oh oh oh’, Jim Lindberg has been the voice of skate punk powerhouse Pennywise since 1988 (except for those two years when Ignite’s Zoli Téglás took over). Now, for the first time ever he is going at it alone on his solo debut, ‘Songs From The Elkhorn Trail’.

Well, not entirely alone. ‘Songs from the Elkhorn Trail’ was produced and mixed by Tedd Hutt (Gaslight Anthem, Lucero, Dropkick Murphy’s) and Lindberg got help from the likes of David Hidalgo Jr. (Social Distortion) on drums, Joe Gittleman (The Mighty, Mighty BossToneS, Avoid One Thing) on bass, and Marc Orrell (The Dropkick Murphy’s, The Walker Roaders) on guitar. 

Written mostly at his late father’s Palm Desert rental house near the Elkhorn Trail, these twelve songs find Lindberg reflecting on much more personal subjects like life, friends and family than what we are used to from him. While it is always admirable to see an artist venturing out of his comfort zone, one can’t help but wonder if this was really worth the effort though. In spite of the fact that some of these songs have been over 25 years in the making, most of them don’t have a lot more meat on their bones than your average campfire song while lyrically I was hoping for a bit more than lines like ‘hello, goodbye, hello again, loneliness you are my only friend’ or ‘don’t take me down to the basement, I really don’t want to go’. 

Songs from The Elkhorn Trail track list:

1. The Palm of Your Hand
2. I Feel Like The Sun
3. You're Not Alone
4. Hello Again
5. Don't Lay Me Down
6. Not One Of Them
7. Blood On Your Hands
8. Good Enough
9. It's Only
10. The Basement
11. On Fire
12. Long Way To Go