Another musical outing for a former member of the Babylon 5 cast, In The Current is Bill Mumy’s second album on Renaissance Records, and it demonstrates his incredible versatility. From the folky alternative rock style of Angel’s Observation to the gentle, well-harmonized balled “The Climb” (evoking memories of some of the best Crosby Stills & Nash tunes), Mumy covers a lot of ground. Able to go acoustic or electric from song to song, Mumy kicks off the album with the Dylanesque “Lost In Babylon” – a B5 reference in title only. (For overt Babylon 5 references, check out “Stronger Than Gravity”, which is subtitled in the lyric booklet as “To Delenn from Lennier.”) There’s even a slightly suggestive love song in “We Could Use A Little Something”. Mumy skips around different genres like he’d walk from one room to another – and yet most of the time (though not always) he manages to evade many of the clichès we’ve come to associate with the various styles.
Bill Mumy’s not going to wind up on a Golden Throats album anytime soon. This is one actor who is a serious musical contender (and it’s worth noting that Mumy was the musical backbone of the Be Five project which was reviewed here last month).
For anyone who’s a B5 fan, a fan of good music that isn’t being played to death on the radio, or a fan of Bill Mumy in particular, my highest recommendations go to In The Current.
- Main Title (3:39)
- Lost In Babylon (4:25)
- Angel’s Observation (Just Like The Other Ones) (4:41)
- I’ll Walk The Walk (3:23)
- The Climb (4:20)
- We Could Use A Little Something (3:53)
- In The Current (3:00)
- It’s Not The Same (2:53)
- Needed To Let You Know (4:21)
- How I Loved My Girlfriend (3:47)
- Stronger Than Gravity (To Delenn From Lennier) (4:34)
- Can’t Win This Game (Bound To Die) (3:10)
- I Don’t Know You (The Wheel Of Faith) (5:09)
- Halfway Home
- To Nicolette (1:32)
Released by: Renaissance
Release date: 1999
Total running time: 52:53
