Unbunny: Moon Food

It was tempting to be really catty and write something like “Unbunny has scads of personality; unfortunately, it’s mostly Neil Young’s”. Whoops, too late, that (crazy) horse has bolted. Seriously, though, there are moments on Moon Food where you think Unbunny main man Jared Del Dio intended this as a parody of mid-70’s Neil. There are the tremulous tenor vocals, the brittle acoustic strum and mid-tempo pacing that make it all too painfully evident he’s channeling, . Even the lyrics at times rival Neil’s at his hippy-dippiest: the opening couplets of “Straw On A Camel’s Back” are as cringe-inducing in an intense desire to scan as those of, say, “Here We Are in the Years”.

Not to say there aren’t some bright spots: the instrumental layering and vocal descant of “Landslide” appeals, as do the banana-fingered piano and electric guitar shards that grace “February Secret”. However, one hopes Del Dio will eventually rise above slavish replication, as other Neil devotees have done, to transform his fandom into a more unique and personal song style.