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Peter Himmelman
"LOVE THINKETH NO EVIL" | SIX DEGREES

BY JULENE SNYDER |

There are days when it seems as if the entire music industry is intentionally flooding the aural landscape with utter crap. The records wash up in endless waves, threatening to drown us in a deluge of brain-dead ditties. Thankfully, it only takes one great record to lift you out of that muck, and singer-songwriter Peter Himmelman has happened by with a lifesaver. Himmelman writes songs with an assured easiness, the music fitting snugly around his graceful but often biting words. "Love Thinketh No Evil," his ninth album, is a meditation on love, loss and crushed expectations. At times it sounds as if Himmelman is channeling Elvis Costello in his glory days. The longing twang of "Checkmate" is a pensive weeper that finds him ruminating, "I need something more than this ... I need horses on the highway." The track "Million Miles Wide" has a catchy melody, but with a darker sentiment nestled in the lyrics: "Got to keep reminding myself not to sleep, there's so much to desire, but so little to keep."

Himmelman deserves credit for never playing the famous father-in-law card (Bob Dylan), and if he gets a bit sappy, a tad too earnest or cerebral, it's worth remembering that "Love Thinketh No Evil" is his first studio recording in five years. But if there's any justice, it will finally get him the mainstream recognition he deserves.

http://www.salonmagazine.com/ent/music/reviews/1999/01/19review.html