Jeffrey Clark: Sheer Golden Hooks

It's difficult to say whether Sheer Golden Hooks, the first solo release from former Shiva Burlesque singer Jeffrey Clark, is a pop album. It's got the hooks, the structure, the vocals and the lyrics, but it's as if these elements were toned down just enough to keep pop's catchiness from obscuring the songwriting. Recorded over a period of four years, it's easy to map Clark's influences during the early material. Specifically, he seems to have drawn from the British pop of Echo and the Bunnymen (minus the synth) and the moody ballads of The Jazz Butcher. As the album progresses, so too do the influences—folk artists like Bob Dylan and rockers like Masters of Reality—until Clark creates a sound of his own. His talent for metered prose, though, is the constant throughout. Clark is a storyteller, and each song speaks of impressions and reflections on celebrities, places and events which have colored his life. Sheer Golden Hooks is a mature album of subtle quasi-pop that's soothing and literary. It's a good album in which to lose yourself, as each song is a new world to observe.