Road To Ensenada

"After hearing 'Road To Ensenada' it would be easy to say 'Oh yeah, a bunch of songs bemoaning his broken marriage to Julia Roberts.' But hell, all Lyle's albums deal with life & love, the won & the lost and besides, he'd never be so transparent.

What we do have, though, is a glorious album: as good as, if not better than, any of his previous efforts and exploring relationships a little deeper than in the past.

The style is a move back to the basic swing country instrumentation of his first couple of releases (especially reminiscent of the classic Pontiac) with more of those wonderful dry-wit lyrics that only the likes of Randy Newman are otherwise capable of.

While the up-tempo numbers careen across Texas like a runaway freight-train, it's the ballads that tug at the old heart strings and you find yourself thinking that these songs are so personal and sincere that maybe they are about you know who.

For me, the standout track is Christmas Morning, a track about someone not showing up and I don't think he means Jerry Garcia in a jolly red suit." -RL