by Jason Ankeny
With the erratic California, Mark Eitzel's songwriting skills blossom into full maturity. From the pedal-steel inflected opener &Firefly& to the luminous &Western Sky,& the best of his compositions reveal uncommon depth and emotional heft: &Somewhere& cuts with the savage humor of a master storyteller, while &Blue and Grey Shirt,& a memoir of a friend's AIDS-related death, is simply devastating. A number of the cuts don't work at all -- the muddy &Bad Liquor& is an indecipherable rant, while &Laughing Stock& is by-the-numbers melodrama -- but those that do are nothing short of transcendent.