Jason Maas and the Lower Companions release this disc Saturday, Oct. 17 at the Pyramid. United by Maas’s gritty vocals and hooky, flat-picking acoustic guitar, Clean opens with one of the album’s stronger tracks, Bonafide War. It’s a bit hit and miss from there. Chock-full of religious language and references to the Lord, the lyrics on Clean often fall short of the album’s musical calibre. That’s not to say that just because lyrics are Christian they are necessarily bad, but these ones often feel thin and uninspired. The band has certainly put together an ambitious collection of songs spanning several genres, from ‘50s pop to folk and gospel. With help from the Wailin’ Jennies’ Nicky Mehta’s backing vocals, the last two tracks on the record tell beautiful tales of love and death. If you can look past the flaws, you may find something good lurking behind the rhyming couplets and lyrical abstractions.

Published in Volume 64, Number 7 of The Uniter (October 15, 2009)