January 12, 2003
Review: Legends of the Super Heroes
Matt Weitz, The Dallas Morning News

No one need pity Beaver Nelson any more. After a tragic decade spent album-less in the clutches of a major label, the Austin singer is on his own and releasing albums at the rate of roughly one a year.

The creativity such a pace requires seems to suit him: Legends is his best effort yet, and its predecessors weren't exactly slouches.

Mr. Nelson's strong suit has always been an ability to spin songs that seem to come from a specific place in his life yet are still open to interpretation by the listener. His quirky tunes and offbeat arrangements are somehow more vivid than life.

And a lot of fun. "Baloney Bay" is a Huck Fin-like tale of a river trip that gets a quasi-Dixieland feel through the use of horns; "Government-Sanctioned Hayride" is a lighthearted romp that nonetheless protests something that Mr. Nelson feels strongly about.

Even sadder and more serious songs have a thread of optimism running through them. The battered narrator of "Anything Easy Left" wonders, but doesn't sound about to stop looking; the guy in "Clean It Up" is left with a mess in his heart but doesn't regret the making of it. Legends is an album that truly does reveal more of itself—in a good way—with each listen.