Heth
Clean (2003)

review by: Michael Walls
Date: 2/14/03

Flattery gets you no where. Well, okay – it gets you bumped to the top of the CD pile. But that's it. After that, you're on your own.

The CD Clean from Heth (as in Heth Weinstein) arrived at my door with the usual marketing materials that accompany just about every other press package I get. Except, Heth starts off his letter, "I've been coming to your website for a while and think it's awesome!" Hmmm…Heth has some potential.

My wife picks up the CD and comments, "Hey, he's kinda cute. Looks like Beck." Well, there you go. All the ingredients for a great CD.

Regardless of what Heth looks like and whether he enjoys our site or not, I would have eventually listened to his CD and come to the same conclusion. Heth could be the next big thing – following in the footsteps of other single-name artists like Sting, Bono, and Beck.

With the popularity of male singer/songwriters today, and with the right exposure, financing and planet alignment, Heth could easily be singing along side the likes of Ryan Adams and John Mayer – and with much more clever lyrics then the silly fluff John Mayer is singing about.

Heth has a great vocal presence, similar to that of Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra, with a wide range and natural style. His acoustic guitar playing is similar to that of Freedy Johnston. Throw in some layered guitars, keys and melodic rhythm, a brother named Jeb to help play some of the instruments, and an REM producer named Jamie Candiloro, and you have the potential to create a great CD.

And that's what they've done. Six extremely tight and well produced songs, starting with "Falling Together" – a bit of an '80s throwback tune using funky synth sounds and echoey vocals. "My Headphones" reminds me of The Smiths with its mellow, Johnny Marr-type guitar playing and catchy vocal hooks in the end. "Life's a Photograph" is one of my favorites, mostly because of it's Better Than Ezra sound, vocals and lyrics. The single off this CD (should the planets align for Heth) would be "So Easy" – a perfectly structured, played and sung, hook-heavy song. It starts with a clean, acoustic guitar – brings in some subtle rhythm and haunting vocals, that eventually build into a multi-layered production – with Heth's vocals reminding me a bit like Bono. I really enjoy this song.

My only criticism of this CD is the very fact it's only 6 songs, running just under 20 minutes in total music. But I guess I'd rather have 6 great songs, then 6 great songs and 6 crappy songs. Just put the CD player on continuous play and you won't notice when it ends.