Nov-Dec 2004
Beaver Nelson: Motion CD Review
Luke Torn, No Depression

Like a grand philosophical tablet rendered in miniature, Beaver Nelson's fifth album slips by almost without being noticed. Nelson's pithy melodies and fairly conventional roots-folk-rock (with splashes of power-pop) are not flashy, and the artist certainly wasn't afforded the kind of recording budget his songs deserve.

Instead, with sidekick Scrappy Jud Newcomb on guitar, Nelson relies on a kind of deviously insinuating simplicity. With his religious convictions as a backdrop, Nelson's songs crawl into the minutiae of everyday life, the lyrics depicting a childlike curiosity bumping up against age-old wisdom. While cuts such as the soul-searching ballad Tell Me and the love song Good Good Good verge on the melodic austerity of nursery rhymes, Minute Man, the most immediately arresting cut, is delivered in a breathless whirl, with Newcomb's gritty, fiery guitar blasts pushing the irresistable hook into the transcendental.

Minute Man, in fact, is representative of the nature of Nelson's artistry these days. With its disorienting allusions to time ("I'm spinning faster now I know/ Seems like the cup is filling so slow"), it's preoccupied with both knowing your place in the world and getting the most out of every moment. If, as has been said, the secret to live is living in the moment, then Nelson's seemingly effortless songs are indeed a combustible combination.