Holly Golightly

I have to admit that I was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of sitting through a new Holly Golightly album, another Valium-drip-slow trip through retro land, complete with a pit stop at the Beer Soaked Roadside Juke Joint, in the white hipster station wagon of fun. Bleh. Oh sure, Slowly But Surely, Golightly's 11th, has its moments. "All Grown Up," a jailbait rocker, at least has a pulse. But for the most part I was pretty dead-on in my preconceived bias (I am a genius, after all). "Dear John" is painfully boring, all molasses-slow heartache couched in the frightfully uninspired kitsch of, guess what, a Dear John letter. Yuck. Maybe it's me. Perhaps I'm just not inclined toward the "climb into a warm bath and slit your wrists" fare Slowly serves up. But a bit of originality doesn't seem like too much to ask for, especially from someone with Golightly's track record.