Sound of Lies

Studio album by Jayhawks

Released

April 22, 1997

Genre

Alternative rock, alternative country

Length

55:44

Label

American

Producer

Brian Paulson, The Jayhawks

Jayhawks chronology

Tomorrow the Green Grass
(1995)

Sound of Lies
(1997)

Smile
(2000)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	B−
The Guardian
Los Angeles Times
Mojo
NME	5/10
Q
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Spin	4/10

Sound of Lies is the fifth studio album by American rock band The Jayhawks. It peaked at number 112 on the Billboard 200.

With the departure of Mark Olson, Gary Louris becomes the principal songwriter for Sound of Lies with an occasional co-write with bassist Marc Perlman. New drummer Tim O'Reagan also contributes "Bottomless Cup".

Sara Scribner of the Los Angeles Times felt that Sound of Lies was the work of the band "still reaching to discover what it is" in the wake of Mark Olson's departure, though noting that "despite battling emotions, muddled messages and elusive experimentation, this is still a brave album."David Browne of Entertainment Weekly wrote that while "the music can still have a breathtaking, across-the-great-divide sweep", the album as a whole "is caught between two worlds — it's a little bit wimpy country, a little bit wimpy rock & roll — and ends up lacking the power of either."Robert Christgau of The Village Voice assigned it a "dud" rating, indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought."

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, critic Thom Owen called Sound of Lies "the band's most ambitious album to date" and felt that Louris' lyrics "have a naked, emotional honesty which would have been more affecting if the music echoed its sentiment, yet the record still has a subtle grace and power, proving that the Jayhawks remain a distinctive band without Olson."

All songs written by Gary Louris, unless otherwise noted.

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Wikipedia