Mike Keneally & Beer For Dolphins "Sluggo!" 1997 Mix (Download)

(Released in 1997, digitally re-released in 2009. Read the All Music Guide review.) Considered by many fans to be the ultimate Keneally album, it's a great pleasure to make the legendary Sluggo! available digitally after years of undeserved semi-oblivion. "Mike can summon all the facility required for difficult music and still make it fun, fresh, warm, and, especially in much of Sluggo!, unshakably memorable," wrote Matt Resnicoff shortly after its release. "So what else to say about Sluggo!, except that it delights, confounds and inspires?," Resnicoff continues. "Keneally's songs are infectious demonstrations of the wide musical berth a man of his skill requires, riddled with intricate treasures and chest- slamming force that never dislodge his ceaselessly heartful melodies. His vocals are terrific; in putative ode to his loves and losses, and to Al Hirschfeld, Keneally's vulnerabilities are laid out bare, and he sings them true; assessing the injustices of the universe, he cracks th