Talk of Heaven

Given Joe Henry's chameleonic career, it should come as no surprise that upon finally hearing his long-unavailable debut album Talk of Heaven (finally reissued in 1999 on Astor Place), it sounds quite unlike any other record in the singer/songwriter's catalog -- with its melancholy folk-rock approach (closest in spirit to his 1989 major label bow Murder of Crows), the disc almost collapses under the weight of its massive debt to Bob Dylan.