David Olney: The Wheel

by Nick Cristiano

There has always been an intensity to David Olney that belies the gentility you might associate with the term singer-songwriter. And he's not afraid to tackle big ideas, in his own elemental fashion: Here he takes a philosophical saying by Albert Einstein and uses it as inspiration for a blistering blues number, "Boss Don't Shoot No Dice."

The Wheel is not his best album, but it does display Olney's power and range as a writer, singer and musician. He begins the song cycle in stormy fashion, with numbers that employ the raw sounds of blues, gospel and folk to reach the darkness at the heart of the lyrics. He ends in a state of serenity with the sweet ballads "The Girl I Love" and "All the Love in the World," songs that are as deeply felt as the hard-edged, tumultuous material that has come before.