Vic Chesnutt

Vic Chesnutt's fourth album was the one that raised his profile from an almost entirely unknown cult figure to a mostly unknown cult figure with a lot of good press clippings. Combining the best parts of his last two albums -- the wide-ranging eclecticism of West of Rome and the electric directness of Drunk -- into a satisfying whole, Is the Actor Happy? has an unexpectedly clean production aesthetic (courtesy of new producer John Keane) and some of Chesnutt's strongest songwriting. If anything, this might be the album's primary flaw; at its best, Chesnutt's music always sounds balanced on a knife edge, with a nagging sense that the whole thing could fall apart at any second, even though it never quite does. This album lacks that tension, and although it's chock-full of good to great songs, "Gravity of the Situation" and the gently self-mocking "Onion Soup" being two of Chesnutt's finest, that lack is just enough to make Is the Actor Happy? slightly less essential than the two albums that preceded it. The 2004 reissue on New West Records includes six bonus tracks, mostly previously unissued live recordings, including "Fun Party/Shoestring Store," Chesnutt's first collaboration with Lambchop, with whom he would go on to record The Salesman and Bernadette. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide