Blind Man's Zoo

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<i>Blind Man’s Zoo</i> further refines the alternative folk-rock sound of 10,000 Maniac’s breakthrough album <i>In My Tribe</i>, resulting in an album that feels lightly rustic in tone, but slick and cosmopolitan in its presentation. Natalie Merchant’s voice sounds bolder and more theatrical this time around, while the band experiments with a muted, tasteful variation on Motown grooves that they’d more fully explore on their next album. “Trouble Me,” a ballad Merchant wrote about her father with keyboard player Dennis Drew, is the standout track here. It’s a remarkably compassionate piece of music, with Merchant gently offering to listen to someone who’s become withdrawn and unwilling to share their burden. “Eat for Two,” a jittery number about a young girl who’s pregnant but too far along to consider an abortion, is nearly as strong and just as empathetic in its portrayal of the character’s ambivalence about impending motherhood. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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