In his new album "Skin" (Sony), Orthodox-Jewish L.A. folk-rocker Peter Himmelman fashions an ambitious song-cycle that seeks to do for Jewish eschatology what the Tibetan "Book of the Dead" did for Buddhism.
The album's songs chart the post-life career of Ted, a crass Hollywood materialist who perishes in the sports car he exalted above his own humanity. In "Eleven Months in the Bath of Dirty Spirits," Himmelman sings of Ted entering a limbo where, for a time, he becomes the people he ignored or disdained in life. In song after song, Ted for the first time confronts the pain inherent in the "suit of skin" he once wore.
With a somewhat less daunting theme, "Skin" might have proved a commercial breakthrough for cult-favorite Himmelman. But even his father-in-law, Bob Dylan, would not have dealt with such weighty themes in so stark a manner.
By eschewing the worldly yet shallow themes of so much contemporary pop, Himmelman has fashioned an archetypal anti-rock opera.
Sheli Teitelbaum / Los Angeles