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Review of Cedar Grove
Jeff Apter
Rolling Stone Australia
June 1999.

Local Bluesman Dazzles

A dab hand with an amped-up acoustic, slide, 12-sting and lap steel, and wielding a husky voice that carries more than a hint of danger, globe-trotting Melbunian Jeff Lang is the real blues deal. For Cedar Grove, his sixth long-player, he manages to tame an inclination for show-stopping solos, focusing on the song instead: and he's a better man for it. Yet even when he does cut loose - cue the amp-smoking "Too Easy To Kill" - Lang reigns himself in before the word "indulgent" springs to mind. And such vivid descriptions as "She had a face like an ocean / Been ravaged by the years" proves this bluesman's got more than "she done me wrong" songs on his mind. 3 ½ stars.

Jeff Apter - Rolling Stone Australia - June 1999.

JEFF LANG "Cedar Grove" Wind River
By Mike Joyce

The Washington Post
Friday, August 13, 1999; Page N07

Jeff Lang is a contemporary singer-songwriter from Australia whose heart resides in the Mississippi Delta. Or at least that's the impression he leaves on "Cedar Grove," an album ringing with the sound of bent notes, slide guitar riffs and resonator guitars.

Like kindred spirit Daniel Lanois, Lang isn't a blues traditionalist. He knows that the raw emotions inherent in Deep South blues are far beyond his reach, so he draws instead on the region's atmospherics, orchestrating his brooding ballads with altered tunings and steel-on-steel textures. Since nearly all of the album's 11 tunes are original compositions and Lang nearly always comes across as sincere, he doesn't suffer any unflattering comparisons. In fact, his rather boyish tenor takes on a certain soulfulness as the album unfolds and he gives voice to the restless characters who inhabit "Always Moving," "Broken One More Time" and other songs.

The Lanois connection is particularly evident on the album's closing track, Bob Dylan's "Call Letter Blues," a bleak, heartsick blues played out by Lang on lap steel guitar. Mercifully, Lang doesn't mimic Dylan's oft-imitated phrasing, but he does capture the profound despair implicit in the lyrics. It's also easy to discern the affection Lang has for Dylan's brand of torrential wordplay, especially on the album's raucous slide guitar romp, "Too Easy to Kill."

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