The Cowardly Traveller Pays His Toll

Simon Joyner has that same trajectory Bill Callahan has: they both started out as songwriters in the indie vein, but as they grew older, they more or less ditched the whole idea for the classic singer-songwriter approach.

Even though it's probably his most well known release, for me, it's near the bottom of his discography. The songwriting is somewhat here, but the rest of it is lacking. The raw, overamplified guitar is an annoying, almost bad, quality that's being beaten to death. It does have hints of the vocal style that suits him best, like on "Montgomery" and "Target", but the album is mostly in the key of "whiny slacker rocker".