*** Smog

THE DOCTOR CAME AT DAWN

(Drag City)

Smog is singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Bill Callahan, overdubbed so that he becomes a dark, borderline-minimalist combo, the songs sometimes anchored by what sounds like arco bass sprinkled with artsy little doodles (a mandolin is listed but I couldn't spot it). With his expressively husky and decidedly smoggy voice, smart-ass liner notes, and elliptically downbeat lyrics, Callahan might at first seem like just another doomy, gloomy wiseguy. Which, up to a point, he is.

But Callahan's distinction is that unlike his slowcore brethren he has a generous melodic sense (most of these songs stick on first hearing) and is capable of dropping his obscurantist shtick and writing a straightforward and affecting lyric. "Lize," "All Your Woman Things," and "Four Hearts in a Can" are payoff songs, moments when the archness of packaging has done its job (which is to establish some distancing hipness) and some real, uncomfortable feeling is allowed to come through. Not that Callahan isn't at times a bit much; "Spread Your Bloody Wings" is all woolly-minded imagery, and "Hangman Blues," with its interminable pauses, begs to be hated. Still, he's undeniably a smart cookie -- promising and all that.

-- Richard C. Walls

(Smog play this Friday, November 22, at the Middle East.)