Solid songs a little lost in production

Reviewed November 2010

Still, there's a nagging feeling listening to "L.A. Can Wait" that Tiernan is drifting away from developing his own voice, from fully trusting his own instincts.

The opening track, "Write Me a Love Song," opens like a mash between Bryan Adams and Richard Marx before devolving into a Coldplay knockoff. It's a highly polished, professional performance, as good as anything on the major labels, but it doesn't necessarily feel – or sound – like Michael Tiernan. Throughout the rest of the album, Tiernan seems to be trying to fit into existing formulas of popular acts from the alt rock, contemporary Christian and singer-songwriter charts.

Fair enough, Bryan Adams, Richard Marx and Coldplay have all sold far more records than Michael Tiernan has yet – but as one of the great rabbis whose name eludes me once wrote, God doesn't repeat himself. So if we already have a Coldplay and a Richard Marx, do we really need more?

On his first three albums, Tiernan created a solid body of work and was well on his way to developing a Michael Tiernan sound. With strong songs on the new album like "Small Things," "Here" and the above-mentioned opening track, he had a tremendous opportunity to really further his music career – an opportunity that seems a bit diffused by the attempts to remold his sound into something else.

Listening to "L.A. Can Wait," it's hard not to imagine how "Write Me a Love Song" would have sounded if it had been included on the "Spaces" CD, if it had that stripped-down approach that, say, the superb "Same Sky" did.

If it sounded like Michael Tiernan.

Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).