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John Train is a Philadelphia quintet that is incrementally building an audience with quietly interesting songs with occasionally intriguing arrangements. LOOKS LIKE UP, their followup to 1999's COUNTRY STANDARD TIME, doesn't deviate much from their tried and true formula so that while there are no new surprises, there is nothing here that will jar their fanbase away from. The music continues to be straight ahead Americana, piano, fiddle, guitar, and drums, with a frequent mandolin, occasional dobro, and, on "Misery Loves Company" some brass. Everything is nicely produced, so that even when things get a bit busy you can hear a pin drop between notes.

"John Train" is the pseudonym that folk singer Phil Ochs would occasionally use, and it's appropriate here in the sense that there are echoes of '60s and '70s culture here. There are references to the late Richard Farina (LOOKS LIKE UP is a loose reference to Farina's book BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME), and vocalist John Houlin occasionally conjures up the ghost of Jerry Garcia, circa AMERICAN BEAUTY and WORKINGMAN'S DEAD. Similarly, there is a Kerouacian, wanderlust atmosphere to LOOKS LIKE UP, what with evocations of Baton Rouge, and tracks with titles such as "Nova Scotia" and "Savannah." "Nova Scotia" in particular, contains the haunting line "I may get lost from time to time/but I'm still coming home to you."

John Train has certainly got the technical chops and the lyrical ability to keep going as a working concern for as long as they might wish. Their melodies, perhaps, could be a bit more interesting; certainly, however, they are deserving of the wider audience that some of their more commercially successful colleagues already have. This is an aggregation that continues to bear watching, and listening to.