Jeff Callahan: Empty Swings

Jeff Callahan is a talented poet. That fact cannot be denied. However, based on what his audience gets with Empty Swings, I’m not sure the same can be said of Callahan’s musicality.

Empty Swings is a spoken word album, so rather than hearing Callahan sing his poems as lyrics, the listener gets Callahan reciting his poems as poems.

This in itself is by no means a bad thing. However, the music that accompanies the spoken word throws off the entire album.

On Empty Swings, Callahan’s poems are backed by the music of B.D. Lenz. Just as Callahan is a gifted poet, Lenz is a skilled musician. The problem is that the work of the two artists doesn’t mesh very well...MORE