Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Those who know me will not be surprised at the news that I am sick of the green movement. About ten years ago I started taking actual guerrilla action, celebrating Earth Day by making unnecessary auto trips to the local mall, dumping glass bottles at the landfill, and asking for paper, dammit, not plastic, bags at the supermarket. I have had to up the ante a bit (as usual, you can never satisfy these pointy-heads, who now say that paper, not plastic, is the more mother Gaia friendly act) but I remain true to the cause. So along comes this CD entitled EVERYTHING IN NATURE by the Broken Poets, with a cover, front and back, full of nature scenes, and the message that the band is gonna donate one-half of the royalties from the project to Greenpeace, Oxfam, and NRDC, the three groups (along with Audubon) who have most directly been responsible for the cost of gas being four bucks a gallon, and gloating over it. So I had this bad boy all set to sail into the skeet pile but had to give it a listen. Just to be fair. Any you know what? It’s decent. Good, even.

EVERYTHING IN NATURE is the fourth project released under the Broken Poets moniker. Lead singer/guitarist/composer Tim McDonald is a native New Yorker, now based in Phoenix, and no doubt spends much of his time dodging my friend Sheriff Joe Arpaio for fear of a traffic stop that will send him and his hippie friends back where they came from. His vocals are predictably overwrought and infused with manifestations of climate delusion syndrome, but if you can tune out the message and flow with the music this is a more than listenable project. McDonald has a fine hand for metaphor, and on tracks like “To Dream Of Another Life” he demonstrates that he is a great songwriter with an ear for melody. Pianist Lana Antropova provides unobtrusive, dynamic and flowing runs that augment and support McDonald’s vocals. The result is somewhat reminiscent of Toad The Wet Sprocket, or what Crash Test Dummies would have sounded like if they had recorded decent songs.

EVERYTHING IN NATURE, despite its ham-fisted seriousness, is really not bad, and if McDonald wants to share the fruits of his labors with causes he supports, then more power to him. At least he’s honest about it, unlike Paul Newman, who pours the proceeds from his line of food products into a support system for an anti-American magazine and calls it “educational” to get a tax break. And besides, “Idle Thought” is a great track that I can’t get out of my head. Though it pains me, I gotta recommend this one.