** John Wesley Harding

TRAD ARR JONES

(Zero Hour)

After several lackluster releases, John Wesley Harding's previous album for Zero Hour, Awake, was seen (by the few who were looking) as a kind of return to the form of his early-'90s Sire releases -- the Costello-esque Here Comes the Groom and The Name Above the Title. But rather than following up with another solid original disc, Harding opted to record an album of material by a somewhat obscure British folksinger.

Nic Jones's songs, many of which were interpretations and reworkings of traditional fare like "The Golden Glove" and "The Bonny Bunch of Roses," are an awful lot like Harding's: both avoid the personal and concentrate on narratives. With multi-instrumentalist Robert Lloyd providing accompaniment on mandolin, pump organ, and accordion, Harding wraps his honeyed and pleasantly unsteady voice around these songs like a well-worn leather glove. Unlike the Wilco/Billy Bragg Woody Guthrie project Mermaid Avenue, Trad Arr Jones is very much a traditionalist's album. You have to wonder why Harding made the effort to record these songs with such reverence when they already exist in their original form. Whether it proves to be a retrenching or a diversion, Trad Arr Jones feels more like a curio than an event.

-- Ben Auburn