The first thing that becomes glaringly apparent while listening to Beaver Nelson's Legends of the Super Heroes is that he's suddenly become as much a pure pop tunesmith in the vein of Freedy Johnston as he is a hard-scrabble roots man. It's most apparent throughout "Anything Easy Left," but you can also sense it, for example, in the way that "Digging a Well" moves from standard, classic country intonations to an elegantly pop melody line in the chorus. Then there's the swooning, piano-twinkly "Chameleon Brain," or the way Nelson lashes his unearthly melodic smarts atop the country shuffle of "Government Sanctioned Hayride." With each album (this is his fourth) Beaver Nelson seems to cast his uncanny talent for great tunes and literate lyrics in a different light. With Legends of the Super Heroes, Nelson confirms the fact that he just may be one of the smartest, least predictable songwriters working the formidable expanses of Austin, TX, a town that has seen its share of that rare species. ~ Erik Hage