Joe Fahey

• Bushnell's Turtle [Rough Fish, 2011] **
• February on Ice [Rough Fish, 2021] A-
• Baker's Cousin [Rough Fish, 2022] ***
• Andrea's Exile [Rough Fish, 2024] B+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Bushnell's Turtle [Rough Fish, 2011]
Singer-songwriter buys a dictionary and lives to make a joke about it ("I Could Not Steal Her Heart [So I Stole Her Car]," "Delta Pine Blues") **

February on Ice [Rough Fish, 2021]
Twin Cities lifer Fahey hits the bullseye twice with the same song, the explicitly ecological "Dante's Inferno," which serves as both Crazy Horse-style opener and solo-acoustic closer: "What are you gonna do when the glaciers flood your basement?/What are you gonna do when you have to answer to Al Gore?" That plus its life's companion we wish would grow old, the long overdue cheap shot "Fuck the Republicans," would certainly inspire a guy to get his album on, especially with good ones that aren't filler themselves close at hand. "Day Drinking With Dracula," for instance, is a joke that comes easy. "I Feel So Alone Now" is so bereft you'll feel a touch bereft yourself if you can just keep listening. A-

Baker's Cousin [Rough Fish, 2022]
"There's a vaccine on the horizon/There's a sunrise in the east," the opener reports hopefully, but one-note melodies and $12 cocktails impinge as the insomnia that began with "that one election" never fully loosens its hold ("All Quiet on the Midwestern Front," "Nobody's Afraid of Ringo") ***

Andrea's Exile [Rough Fish, 2024]
Did he fix the coffee wrong? Forget to feed the fish? What sparked the domestic crisis that left this mild, melodic, politically conscious Twin Cities singer-songwriter mourning the departed Andrea, whose calico and Birkenstocks he can't get off his mind? "There's just nothing to prepare you to take the stand at a lover's trial/No sadness greater than the crash then the silence of Andrea's exile," he knows now. Can they still achieve "a life of love and laughter" or has that horse has left the stable? His tenderness and regret are so palpable that the softy in me hereby urges him not to give up yet. B+