Roman Evenings

Some people just want to do it all. At a time when the airwaves seem flooded with synergistic rapper/actor/athletes and perfume spokesperson/strippers you have to wonder if these "artists” divagate due to creative control issues or simply for the cash. No matter the reason, the practice usually leaves talent spread exorbitantly thin across various media. Author Adam Klein’s new disc Tiny Ladies — an accompaniment to his novel of the same title — suffers from this omnipotence complex slightly, though not as badly as say, Shaq. Klein’s grandiose tales of love, life and death work quite well on the plangent "Acid Lines,” which could easily be a lost CSNY single, but more often than not Roman Evenings slip into a maudlin, howling ditch. "Song for the Ashes” and "Changed by Your Face” lack the literary substance one would expect and often resort to sentimental platitudes that sound doubly hoary over the band’s Dylan worship. Suitable, however, for the congenitally depressed and recently divorced.