Maxim

Bill Janovitz, Up Here
Reviewed by David Peisner
 
As great, under-appreciated bands go, Boston’s Buffalo Tom take a back seat to no one. Their 1992 opus, Let Me Come Over, is a sparkling totem of near-flawless alt-pop, yet it, along with a half-dozen other impossible-to-dislike releases, have failed to break the band out their “cult favorite” status. The second solo outing from BT’s lead singer Bill Janovitz isn’t likely to change any of this, but it’s not Bill’s fault. The 11 songs on Up Here are, on the whole, gentler and more atmospheric than BT’s output, but they’re no less compelling. Janovitz has the rare talent to get intimate without getting sappy, allowing subtle touches like the spacey lap steel guitar on “Your Stranger’s Face” and the poignant harmonica solo in “Like You Do” to bring out the warmth in this batch of mostly-acoustic songs. While Janovitz’s relative anonymity may not exactly be a chosen path, it’s enabled him to do something those in the spotlight never seem to do—age gracefully.