Es beginnt mit Fleetwood Mac´s "Songbird", nur mit Piano und zittriger Stimme in unendliche Traurigkeit getaucht. Dafür hat er das Tempo von Townes´ Übersong "Our Mother The Mountain" etwas forciert, da ist sogar ein Besen-Schlagzeug präsent, ohne das auch nur etwas von der Songintensität auf der Strecke bleibt. Zu "Calling For You" von Iris DeMent (auf "My Life") und Steve Earle´s "Someday" (auf "Guitar Town") gibt es nur ein paar Töne auf der Akustikgitarre, aber jeder einzelne tonnenschwer und intensiver als das Gesamtwerk von so machem Songwriter. Beinahe exuberant dagegen "Apology Accepted", im Original von den Go-Betweens (auf "Liberty Belle"), uptempo mit Bass und Drums. Danach geht es wieder ganz tief runter. "Now You Are Found" ist der einzige von Phelps geschriebene Song und seiner Schwester gewidmet, die 1999 Selbstmord begangen hat. Tongewordene Emotionen zwischen Schuldgefühlen, Ängsten und Erinnerungen. Das berührt und trifft den unbeteiligten Hörer direkt in die Seele. Kaum einer kann sowas besser hörbar machen als Joel Phelps. Das Album schließt mit "My Life", widerum von Iris DeMent und ähnlich minimalistisch präsentiert.

Ein unglaubliches Stück Musik.

(Glitterhouse)

Joel Phelps, the languid singer/songwriter, formerly of Silkworm, knows how to deliver a soulful tune. With a voice that can morph from a delicate whisper into a countrified warble, he is capable of performing almost anyone's songs beautifully. Inland Empires shines with a series of respectfully original covers. Besides a tribute to his sister, the songwriting here is all other artists' material, but Phelps, with the help of the Downer Trio, does well to make each song his own. "Our Mother the Mountain," a Thomas Van Zandt ditty, sounds better than the original. Other covers of Steve Earle, Iris Dement, and Fleetwood Mac show that Phelps is a man with almost gospel-like soul.

(by Kieran McCarthy, All Music Guide)

“Whether howling over prickly electric terrain or ruminating quietly in bleak acoustic settings, Joel Phelps plies his trade with the kind of open-heartedness typically reserved for intense group therapy sessions. With the mostly covers Inland Empires, Phelps manages to instill that same emotional urgency in the writing of Christine McVie, Townes Van Zandt, the Go-Betweens, Iris Dement and Steve Earle. The fact that Phelps treats the Fleetwood Mac love song "Songbird" as a fragile, minor-key ballad isn't particularly surprising, but the sad, near-tragic beauty he wrenches from the arrangement is absolutely startling. The Downer Trio's slithery, brushed-drum reading of Van Zandt's lyrically vivid "Our Mother The Mountain" resonates with all foreboding of an early blues warning, while Dement's "Calling For You," as rendered by Phelps' hushed ache of a voice and tender acoustic picking, seems as much about existential hopelessness as it does the end of a relationship. But despite the wealth of emotion Phelps culls from these covers, it's his one original, "Now You Are Found [1962-1999]," that serves as the EP's gnawing core. Written in remembrance of Phelps' sister, who recently committed suicide, it peels back layers of guilt, sorrow and memory with subtle, touching restraint broken only by Phelps' verge-of-tears delivery. Devastating.”

(CMJ)