A Review by The Phantom Tollbooth

Contentment
Artist: Greenchoby
Label: Independent
Tracks/time: 12 + bonus/62:13 minutes

Outside of the more traditional boundaries (folk, bluegrass, etc.), decent acoustic music is hard to come by. Too often, someone’s idea of songwriting doesn't go much further than Jewel, whose overwrought lyrics don't go nearly as far as she thinks they do. Saving the day is Greenchoby’s Contentment , an hour-long independent gem that benefits from its modesty.

Composed of the duo of Carolyn Green and Mike Choby, Greenchoby is the perfect antidote to overcooked music. From the onset, these two clearly know what it takes to succeed at stripped-down arrangements and thoughtful lyrics. Green’s songwriting is refreshingly unpretentious, as seen in the simple lyrics to “Grail”:

I am not afraid of the darkness now,

Or its spells on me.

We found the cup in the chapel room. We drank of its mead.

A desecrated altar was cleansed of its disgrace

And it shown upon our guilt, but then it offered us its grace

Without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, the relic of Arthurian legend becomes a metaphor for salvation. Another track, “Chaos,” hints at Green’s experiences living in a rough section of Chicago:

      Got a moment of quiet now.
      Quiet in a relative sense
      There’s a yellin’ on the street and a shaking on the fence.
      Ain’t that the way it is, always something left
      To give the impression of chaos.

One can never escape the effects of humanity’s fallen state. Greenchoby visits this theme in a couple of other songs, such as the title track, which describes contentment as elusive, and “Mary,” the story of a woman abused by her wannabe-preacher husband. She bravely leaves the jerk,

'Cause the road back from this hell, babe,

Is better than the one down.

Choby’s songs (he writes three of them) are not quite as strong, but what he lacks in writing he makes up for in musicianship. Having studied at Duquesne’s School of Music, Choby backs Green’s angelic voice (she sounds like the third Indigo Girl—the one with more range) with intricate bass lines and fluid lead guitar work.

I have one odd complaint: the CD is called Contentment. Why be so humble as to call an album something that satisfies beyond that? The voice, the instrumentation, and the songwriting merit much more than simplecontentment. Why not call it Exhiliration?

Tommy Jolly 9/5/99