West Bank Mike Gets Sincere

On "Sin or Salvation," he shows respect to the music that influenced him.

[Updated] West Bank Mike Doussan’s not going to blow anybody away with his startling originality, but little about his Sin or Salvation album says that he’s trying to blaze a new trail. Sin or Salvation is best heard as a love letter to the music that has moved him. Classic southern rock, blues and soul show up on every track as they clearly shaped Doussan’s notions of good music, and he honors his influences as he invests his emotion and craft in his songs with obvious sincerity and reverence. You can’t hear Sin or Salvation and have any doubts about how he feels about the Allman Brothers, for instance, but his music sounds inspired by them, not derived from them.

Doussan’s lyrics will seem familiar as he looks for an angel, is tired of playing games, hopes for salvation, believes in mama’s wisdom, and wants to spend the night with you. The weakness in these songs isn’t the commonness of the sentiments as much as the absence of his twist on them. As lovely as it is to hear an album that’s a gesture of respect and admiration to the music that made him, at some point he has to apply that musical vocabulary to say something more personal. “Oom Bah Way” is one of the album’s highlights with the unexpected kora and call-and-response vocals on the South African-flavored song, but the song’s fundamental truth - “Love is a crazy thing” - is disappointingly commonplace. 

The best songs, particularly “Mama Said,” are sufficiently well-crafted that familiar lyrics only prompt a “What if …?” moment and hope for future material. Doussan has the voice for his songs and makes them credible, which fuels optimism for what can follow when or if he chooses to make his music more individual. And if he doesn’t, he can clearly work well and authoritatively in conventional forms.

Note: This is an early version of the song from the album.

Updated June 6, 10:45 p.m.

The CD-release show mentioned in the first version of this story has been postponed for a future date that has yet to be chosen. The text has been changed to remove reference to the show.