Jimmy Buffett - Barometer Soup [2LP]

Barometer Soup is Jimmy Buffett at his most literary, a 1995 set of island songs that reads like a stack of well-thumbed paperbacks left on a beach chair. This pressing spreads them across two LPs.

By the mid-1990s Buffett had built Margaritaville into an empire, but he was still restless as a writer, and this record is full of characters, voyages and tall tales borrowed from the pages of good books. The Coral Reefer Band supplies the easy roll of steel drums, acoustic guitars and gentle Caribbean rhythms that his fans know by heart.

The title track "Barometer Soup" serves up a weather-beaten philosophy of life on the water, while "Ballad of Skip Wiley" tips its hat to the eco-warrior antihero from his friend Carl Hiaasen's novel Tourist Season. "Diamond As Big As The Ritz" borrows its name from F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the closing "Mexico" is a breezy take on the James Taylor favorite. "Remittance Man" spins a tale of exile and wanderlust with a wink.

There is a pleasant melancholy under the sunshine here, the sound of a songwriter gazing toward the horizon and wondering what comes next. For Parrotheads it is an underrated chapter worth revisiting, and on vinyl it makes an easy soundtrack for a long, lazy afternoon.