Wrong-Eyed Jesus

Amazon.com

The title of Jim White’s debut album, Wrong-Eyed Jesus! refers not to any of the 11 original songs but to the short story that takes up 14 of the CD booklet’s 18 pages. It’s actually a pretty good story, full of the religious imagery and Southern weirdness that make White sort of a beatnik Flannery O’Connor, and the outsider folk art that accompanies it seems appropriate. Being a good writer and a bohemian artist is not the same thing as being a musician, however, and the songs’ out-of-tune mumbling, melodic minimalism, ramshackle arrangements, and gratuitous symbolism make White sound like Leonard Cohen at his worst. –Geoffrey Himes