Time Between Trains

Time Between Trains

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Time Between Trains is an album of small virtues. The production by Darell Scott is spare and beautiful. Scott adorns each song with subtly idiosyncratic touches (Scottish bagpipes, Indian tablas) that add surprising textures. This is an album for travelers between allegiances, romantic and otherwise. Throughout, one hears mandolins, bouzoukis, trumpets, and violins, yet the overall effect is intimate. Unfortunately, Werner is a better vocalist than songwriter. Some tunes are melodically flat and lyrically pedantic. Strangely, she finally lets her hair down with the hidden track, "When They Make a Movie of My Life." Seemingly intended as a joke, it has much more going on melodically than many of her originals. --Anthony Bonet

Tracks:

Time Between Trains
Old Mistake
Bring 'Round The Boat
Sorry About Jesus
Petaluma Afternoons
Courting the Muse
Montgomery Street
Like Bonsai
Can't Let You In
Standing in My Own Way
Vincent
Movie of My Life (hidden track)

Amazon.com

Time Between Trains is an album of small virtues. The production by Darell Scott is spare and beautiful. Scott adorns each song with subtly idiosyncratic touches (Scottish bagpipes, Indian tablas) that add surprising textures. This is an album for travelers between allegiances, romantic and otherwise. Throughout, one hears mandolins, bouzoukis, trumpets, and violins, yet the overall effect is intimate. Unfortunately, Werner is a better vocalist than songwriter. Some tunes are melodically flat and lyrically pedantic. Strangely, she finally lets her hair down with the hidden track, "When They Make a Movie of My Life." Seemingly intended as a joke, it has much more going on melodically than many of her originals. --Anthony Bonet

Customer Reviews:

melodically flat and lyrically pedantic??.......2005-04-07

Better vocalist than songwriter indeed... I beg to differ! Okay, so every Susan Werner album has a few "phoned-in" songs... But did the reviewer even listen to "Petaluma Afternoons" or "Courting the Muse?" Melodically flat - maybe a couple of tracks aren't as inspired as the others. But who could listen to the poignantly organic rise and fall of "Sorry About Jesus" and feel anything approaching flat? And I suppose by "lyrically pedantic" he means that her songs contain words your average 13-year-old wouldn't know. How many songs do you know that contain the word "serotonin," after all? But to me this is exactly the sort of thing that makes Susan Werner such an original. She hops elegantly between folk, country, blues, and any number of other genres. But above all, what makes Susan's music shine is the sincerity of it. She doesn't mass-produce slick danceable tunes or schmaltzy tearjerkers - she simply writes from the heart, and this album I think contains some of her most inspired songs. Honestly though, any recording is going to sell Susan short. She's a live performer by nature, meant to be seen in person. Still, this album, of all of hers, is about as close as you can come to that experience thanks to the close-miked intimacy that really captures her expressive voice. If you like folk or "traditional" country/bluegrass, and enjoy compassionate, sincere songwriting, this is well worth buying.

Boring if not another garage band singer.......2003-11-05

This gal is unpleasant to listen to. I wouldn't pay to see this entertainer. Very boring folk like tune to her songs. Get into something more interesting like native beats or world music, but I see no talent in a gal on the stage with a guitar or someone with a voice like Susan Werner.

all aboard this 'Train'.......2001-11-08

Having been a Susan Werner fan since Spring 1995, (one of those times where you don't know the artist but the disc called out to me: "The Last of the Good Straight Girls," and I bought it sound-unheard) I feel this release best represents Werner's strengths. This is a disc full of songs depicting various emotionally-based passages through life: adolescent discomfort (Sorry about Jesus); leaving home for college (Like Bonsai); relationship dissolution (Bring 'Round the Boat, Can't Let You In); post-relationship dissolution (Time between Trains; Old Mistake). Werner acutely communicates in a universal way, the observations and foibles that speak to anyone who cares to listen or hear.

The only mis-step (if you can call it that) is the inclusion of "Vincent," Don McLean's paean to the artist. It's a great song, but it doesn't really grab you the way Werner's originals do. It does, however, display her great taste in cover material.

Largely unavailable is her latest disc, "New Non-Fiction (Oct.2001)," but if your awareness about Werner is in the early stages, I highly recommend this disc. The Amazon reviewer emphasizes her vocal skills (with good reason, she trained in operatic vocals before taking this detour), which is true; what he didn't mention was that Werner can sing folk, pop, torch and jazz with equal aplomb. And to her credit, live versions of songs from this and other albums typically do not resemble the studio versions. This can rub folks the wrong way, if they buy Werner's discs based on what they heard live. But I encourage you to relax that response, and in the long run, you will not be dissapointed. Werner is a rare treat to see live, and for that experience, "Live at the Tin Angel" might be a better place to start than "Time Between Trains" if one has a total lack of Susan Werner music in their collection. For the past six years, she has stood the test of time (things still sound fresh on the 100th listen as they did on the 2nd). This is a rare gift indeed.

Disagree with the "official" review... she is terrific!.......2001-10-06

I caught one of Susan's songs on WMVY (one of my all-time favorite radio stations, happily now available via web radio), and completely fell in love with her music.

Each time I listen to this album I hear something completely different. In that respect her music reminds me of Seal - haunting, real, comforting, full of great images and stories.... she may not have Seal's incredible voice, but she is a great artist in her own style!

WOW!.......2000-11-15

Susan Werner's music takes you there. Whether it be Petaluma, a freshman college dorm, or a memory of an old flame - you can see it and feel it. Susan is an amazing musician. I wish that I had found her years ago!

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