John Kribs is a talented singer-songwriter, and Vibratile is a solid album showcasing his abilities. Most of the songs focus on the darker aspects of life -- a little sad, a little bitter, a little depressed. Still, it's not a depressing album as a whole; Kribs' use of poetic imagery and metaphor transforms the songs into a way of coming to terms with the bleaker parts of life, not wallowing in them.

It's not entirely focused on the melancholy, though. One of the nicest songs is a meditation on fatherhood, "Days Like Today." While there are bittersweet aspects of watching a boy grow up, and reflecting on himself as both a boy and a father, in the end he "wouldn't trade this for heaven."

"Where's Alice" is a catchy tune in which the singer is obsessed with a woman who may or may not be a figment of his dreams. This is one I find myself humming at odd hours, as is "Bridges to Burn," although otherwise they're quite dissimilar. "Bridges" depicts the singer's realization that he is, in fact, completely recovered from a former love -- although there is a bit of an undercurrent that he might be fooling himself, just a bit. It's very well written and nicely layered.

Most of the songs use concrete, physical metaphors and illustrations, and these ground the subjects in the world effectively. For me this is one of the strongest aspects of the album.

The music is also well done; the arrangements are varied and appropriate to the songs, and the album as a whole well-paced from the bluesy first song "A Little Insane" (a dark but light-hearted look at infatuation with someone inappropriate) to "Fading Out," an ambiguously optimistic look at engaging in life. The liner is attractive and contains the full lyrics to all the songs -- a nice touch, and important to my enjoyment of a songwriter's work. The back cover is difficult to read -- white text on a color photo -- which is a shame since the musicians are credited there and it's hard to decipher some of their names. Still, it's one of the nicer CD packages that I've seen of late.

All this said, this has been a difficult review for me to write because of one of the album's tracks. "Wild Indians Near" is a spoken piece in which a boy "borrows" his father's bow and arrow and goes into the woods to play Indians. In so doing he shoots a doe, seriously enough to kill her eventually but not quickly, and her "bloated carcass" is found later by a fifth-grade class. I think I am missing the point of this piece. I am deeply disturbed each time I hear it. The boy played a game ... yet it was a horribly agonizing and very real for the doe, and this is referred to only glancingly, as not the real issue compared to the fifth-graders thinking Indians roamed the woods. The piece is well-done, and reminds me somewhat of Barry Lopez, who also writes beautifully about nature and his interactions with it -- and who also, ultimately, seems to miss the point for me. In any case, this piece is distasteful enough to me that I will not listen to the album again because of it, in spite of liking several of the songs. I put this last, because it's an idiosyncratic reaction and ought not in fairness be the focus; it's a good album.

[ by Amanda Fisher ]