BoDeans - Go Slow Down (1993)

The BoDeans made their best album since their debut by returning to the basic folk and rock elements that had always worked best for them. On their most acoustic outing, they also rediscovered themselves as songwriters, pursuing subjects unusually close at hand, whether sex, suicide, or the frustrations of the music business. No matter what the topic, they sounded like they meant it, and for once their eclecticism worked for them, providing them with a bagful of styles to evoke without overdoing it. Go Slow Down may have been the statement of a band that had been through a lot and reached a point of emotional exhaustion, but The BoDeans used their experience to craft their most deeply felt and satisfying music. Two-and-a-half years after the album's release, its leadoff track, "Closer to Free," became a hit after being made the theme song of the Party of Five TV series.