THE USE OF ASHES

With the other founder members of the band all gone, Pearls Before Swine had rather become the Tom Rapp show by this point. That said, as far as psychedelic-tinged folk-rock singer- songwriters go, Tom Rapp does an admirable job here, backed up with his then-wife Elisabeth and Memphis backing musicians to issue forth a range of sweetly sung ruminations. The title track derives from The Jeweller, which deftly reveals unexpected theological depth and hidden sorrows in the midst of its syrupy strings (This Mortal Coil did a decent cover of this one), whilst the album as a whole finds Rapp gently singing (in one of the most distinctive voices in folk- rock) his way through a plethora of themes. Not amazingly trippy by psychedelic standards, but there's an off-kilterness to it which persists through the album and keeps things distinctly 60s.