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(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- Eight years after the demise of his band Soul Coughing, Mike Doughty still sings as though readying himself for a low canine growl, or as if a thin layer of gravel that he can't quite dislodge is tickling his throat. On his third studio solo album, that voice goes well with his observations, which alternate, in no particular pattern, between declarative song-title refrains ("I Wrote A Song About Your Car", "I Got The Drop On You") and askew angles on the usual modern singer-songwriter concerns (audience behavior at gigs, memories of school, love stories). The music isn't nearly so askew, especially compared to the artfully disjointed quality of Soul Coughing, yet Doughty and his fellow players only skirt and never embrace the white-funk and folk-club cliches of most of their peers. True to its title, the flavor of Golden Delicious is tartly, strangely familiar, while Doughty remains familiarly strange.

-- JON M. GILBERTSON
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Jon M. Gilbertson.