Mike Doughty - The Flip Is Another Honey | Elusive Little Comments

Mike Doughty has managed to craft a pretty solid solo career since splitting from Soul Coughing. His last two albums – Sad Man Happy Man and Yes And Also Yes – were both acclaimed and generally accepted into the music community. Soon he will release The Flip Is Another Honey, a collection of covers from choice songs that have influenced Doughty in his career. Featuring tracks from John Denver, Cheap Trick, The Stone Roses and Thin Lizzy, it’s a varied album that will take your curiosity and then have your attention.

The bright spots of The Flip Is Another Honey are the tracks which sound really good with the straight forward acoustic sound. Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat is a fun, enjoyable track featuring keyboards and a lot of passion from Doughty’s vocals that holds a nice homage to the Guys And Dolls musical. Tightrope is another catchy number with a bit of a southern twang that really gets the record moving along nicely, and the heavily distorted guitar that plays throughout is a nice touch.

There’s subtle progression made to Mike Doughty’s sound as he introduces the use of keyboards to help certain tracks stand out from the rest. While the acoustic numbers do tend to blend in a little too much with eachother, the material maintains a steady pace to prevent the album from slowing down. Tracks like Boy + Angel fail to add much more to the record, the same can be said for a few others too.

Overall The Flip Is Another Honey is an enjoyable filled with hits and misses. There may be weak spots but Doughty’s warm vocals and nice acoustic tone makes it easy for anybody to enjoy this record. Where the album doesn’t break new ground the small details such as the raw scream on Sit Down shows that Mike Doughty still loves music.