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| The soundtrack to my most difficult breakup, Neil Halstead’s Sleeping On Roads will always be entangled in my biography. I’m sure that years from now I’ll happen to hear any one of the album’s failed relationship songs, and instantly I will be back in that parked car by the side of the road, struggling to look into the eyes of my longtime girlfriend to say goodbye. Neil Halstead played in the car for us when things were ending, and, alone now, he plays just for me. Like a true singer-songwriter, many of Neil Halstead's songs deal with the dark dimensions of love gone wrong. And like a true masochist, I’ve been listening to these melancholy songs all the time (I should stick with the Buzzcocks), succumbing to their spare and drifting mood. Written with simple honesty and delivered with passion, Sleeping On Roads is loaded with the kind of brutally heartfelt love laments you’d find on an old Van Morrison or Nick Drake record. In song after song, Halstead pours out a broken heart’s worth of feeling. Left homeless after splitting up with his girlfriend, Halstead started Sleeping On Roads while living (and yes, sleeping) in the studio. Out of that pain, these nine songs were born. When they weren’t included on the last Mojave 3 record (his regular band), the idea for a Halstead solo album emerged and these orphaned songs found a home. Gently understated and distinct in sound, Sleeping On Roads stands solidly alongside Mojave 3’s best output. The music mixes folksy acoustic and electric guitar rhythms and textures with piano, organ, bass, drums (played by M3 bandmate Ian McCutcheon), banjo, cello, glockenspiel, dobro, vibes and trumpet, all delicately layered to give the album its lushly hushed ambience. Consistently flowing but far from one dimensional, Sleeping On Roads balances heavily instrumented and expansively atmospheric tracks (“Seasons” and “See You On Rooftops”) with spare, stripped-down torch songs and ballads (“Martha’s Mantra” and “Hi-Low And Inbetween”). Like the best heartbreak classics, Sleeping On Roads slowly reveals its sonic complexities with each successive listen, but its bittersweet mood is instantly captivating. With its haunting melodies, confessional lyrics and dreamy sound, this solo album spotlights why Neil Halstead is the dominant creative force behind Mojave 3. —John Ballon (email) August 4, 2002
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