Trout Fishing in America records are the musical version of face licks from floppy-eared hounds--it doesn't get much friendlier than this. , the duo's 10th album and their fifth for kids, carries forth the warm, wet tradition. Here, Ezra Idlet and Keith Grimwood cast their nets far and wide, reeling in tunes that range from folk to Cajun to general kid stuff to a -meets- brand of funk, as Grimwood aptly puts it. The result is a fun, musically faultless wackfest, which, even with all its varied influences, never once dips below a loyalist's expected pizzazz level. A case in point is "My Best Day," whose Paul Simon-ish intro paves the way to lyrics about kid euphoria: sister's evicted from her bedroom, a blue sparkle drum set is scored, etc. While it's snowing whipped cream and raining chocolate on that tune, trouble's brewing on "You Can't Go," on which a player piano teases the song's slothful target. "Your daddy tried to warn you and your mama told you so," but the homework didn't get done and the dog didn't get fed, so it's sayonara, Charlie. A few songs cast a line toward the very young--"Your Name Backwards" works spelling wonders on the just-learning-to-read set, and "Simon Says" and "Dinosaur in Your Bathtub" set standard cases of the sillies in motion. Older folks will want to take the bait too, and not only because songs like "Are We There Yet" beckon backseat bickerers to play along. This record, with its unmatched gloom-chasing quotient, isn't apt to cause parental embolisms, even after a seemingly inFINite number of spins.

Infinity - Cd