After the breakup of his band the Mice in 1988, Bill Fox walked away from music and didn't come back for nine years until he released his first solo album, Shelter from the Smoke, in 1997. Those expecting the sort of rock & roll that was the Mice's trademark were in for a surprise; Shelter from the Smoke was recorded on a four-track machine at Fox's home and usually features just his voice and acoustic guitar (a rough-and-ready combo called the Radio Flyers steps up on four songs) and enough extraneous noise hovering in the background to make you wonder if Robert Pollard had been called in as a producer. But even though the album's craft is simple, the quality of the songs is more than enough to satisfy old fans and attract a fair number of new ones; while the Spartan acoustic surfaces recall early Bob Dylan sides (as do some of the melodies), Fox's gift for striking melodies and ear-catching hooks was clearly still with him, and there's an intelligence, emotional honesty, and genuine compassion in his lyrics to reach nearly anyone willing to listen, even when the stories are laced with edgy wit. It's anyone's guess what Fox was doing during his self-imposed layoff, but with 18 fine songs, Shelter from the Smoke suggests that Fox might have been casually stockpiling material the whole time, and it appears he was willing to give them just enough space to ripen; this is as good and as satisfying a pop album as anyone released in the last few years of the 1990s, and if the production makes Fox sound like another lo-fi nuevo-folkie, the songs and the performances leave no doubt this is something different and quite special. [In 2009, two years after a piece in The Believer reignited interest in Bill Fox -- who once again quit making music for public consumption -- Shelter from the Smoke was reissued by Scat Records in an edition that featured five bonus tracks. While most of them sound as if Fox had invested in a better tape deck since the album had been recorded, the songs are every bit as good as those on the original LP, particularly the gorgeous "Bird of the World" and the ragged but rollicking "Grand-Ville Blues." The additional tracks don't change the essential character of the album, but they offer more of a good thing and that works in the new edition's favor.] ~ Mark Deming