Warren Zevon was around a decade or so before he got a chance to record this excellent, self-titled album and even though to many he might be better known as a songwriter who was successfully covered by other singers, to me this is one of the best debut albums I had ever heard.
The music is easy, relaxed West Coast pop/rock and songs are almost without exception true little gems that shows Zevon as first-rate songwriter who can in turns be cynical, romantic, swaggeringly macho, ironic or tender. To many of his contemporaries back than he wasn't much of a singer but to my ears he sounds excellent - I actually love his voice and it somehow suits these little music stories better than other, more commercially successful voices. To me there's nothing wrong with his voice - sure,he wasn't shouter or belter like many others but I don't care for that anyway (vocal showing off is after all still showing off). Randy Newman comes to my mind as an obvious comparison but as much as I like Newman's songs I never got over his basically ugly and unattractive voice. When Zevon roars, laughs or gets sentimental it moves me.
Almost all the songs here are my favorites - "Carmelita" is on the top of the list, beautiful mexican-flavoured ballad that could have easy turn into cheesy corn in somebody's else hands but Zevon brings it to Hevens with his voice and yes, lyrics are unusual story (junkie song,basically) so this grabs the attention. I love this debut album so much that I dived head on in the rest of Zevon's discography but curiously enough, nothing I heard later matched inspiration and intelligence here.
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