Graham Parker - The Mona Lisas Sister - Cassette

THE MONA LISA'S SISTER marks both a creative and commercial resurgence for the vituperative Parker. After a series of middling albums, Parker got his feisty self back into fighting form and got down to recording an album that packs the punch of his best earlier work.Parker achieved success here by stripping away all unnecessary accompaniment. That his strongest work in years was also his most quiet is not mere coincidence. Parker realized he wasn't the angry young man he was back in 1976 and avoided trying to recreate bluster that he didn't feel. Though the iron-willed determination is still firmly in place ("Don't Let it Break You Down" and "Get Started. Start a Fire"), Parker's not jumping up and down quite so loudly about it anymore. Despite the fact that the acoustic-flavored album leans toward atypically contemplative fare ("Blue Highway" and "Success"), Parker certainly hasn't retired to the easy chair. Certainly, the murderous "Under the Mask of Happiness" and grisly "OK Hieronymus" will whet the appetites of those longing for the singer's legendary fury. But alas, the fury takes a back seat nowadays as Parker finishes with a straight reading of Sam Cooke's gentle "Cupid."

Song List
1. Don't Let It Break You Down
2. Under The Mask Of Happiness
3. Back In Time
4. I'm Just Your Man
5. OK Hieronymus
6. Get Started, Start A Fire
7. Girl Isn't Ready, The
8. Blue Highways
9. Success
10. I Don't Know
11. Cupid