ALBUM REVIEWS

The actual cd version of this album doesn't ship till next month, but I purchased the advance vinyl copy that came out earlier this month. I could write a post about my aversion of switching from vinyl to cd back in the day, but this isn't the place, but suffice to say I am a big fan of the vinyl format.

Before we even talk about the songs I have to comment on the package itself. One of the things that we lost when albums shrunk to the size of a extra large postage stamp cd was the artistry that went into an album cover. An album doesn't have to be Sgt. Pepper's style to be considered artwork, the cover to Will Hoge's The Wreckage is in essence a fairly simple look but it reflects the songs within and in its simpilitcity reflects the artistic choices that go with picking the look of an album's cover.

The album shows a house in slight disrepair, bricks crumbling, paint peeling; but still standing, much like the people Will sings about in the songs within the album. Will stands off to the side, not taking center stage, willing to let the songs speak for themselves. The colors give it an old time feeling, making one think of the best of rock and roll from the past. In the past an album was considered a gatefold, but since so few vinyl albums are made today I think gatefold is fairly standard. Opening the album you find the lyrics on the left and more pictures of Mr. Hoge to the right. I'm glad the lyrics are included, I'm one of those complusive people that always read the linear notes to an album and always reads the lyrics if they're included.

This is an album about grown ups and grown up real world love. The first song "Hard to Hold" summarizes it:

Kisses don't fade like those Hollywood scenes
It gets worse before it turns around

This song lets us know that there aren't going to be easy answers here. Or good guys and bad guys clearly indicated, like so much in life, there are two sides to every story and depending on which side you're on is whether you think you're the good guy or the bad guy.

The next song, "Long Gone" tells of a man in love with a woman that has been hurt too much to trust anyone now and the singer is worried she'll be gone from him before she realizes how much he loves her.

The next song is the title song "The Wreckage" and the music slows from the fast loud sounds that have been playing for the first two songs and the tone gets more confessional. The singer is facing the end of a marriage or love that he should move on from but finds he can't. This is one of my favorite tracks on the album. Will's voice on here has never been better, there is a yearning in his voice that helps carry this song.

The next song the singer "Favorite Waste of Time" cranks the energy back up as the singer sings about a break up.

"Even If It Breaks Your Heart" is my favorite song on the album and fast becoming one of my favorite tracks by Will overall. This is one of those songs Will Hoge does so well. It starts off fairly quiet as it recounts his early fascination with rock and roll and grows in volume as he realizes that the dream he has of rock and roll may never live up to his expectations. Thought the song is about rock and roll it could be about any dream someone has and how tough it is to try and fulfill that dream.

Some dreams stay with you forever
Drag you around and lead you back to where you were
Some dreams keep on getting better
Gotta keep believing if you wanna know for sure

But that no matter how hard it is and how tough the costs you have to keep fighting if you want to capture that dream, it's worth the fight.

The final song on side one (and how strange that sounds nowdays) is "What Could I Do" and it chronicles the betrayal in a marriage. In this song no one is completley innocent. The singer sings about betraying a confindence (you assume it's an affair) that the wife has already committed. Does tit for tat make things right? That's what this song asks and comes up with no easy answers, the singer knows he did wrong, but the hurt from the first betrayal leaves him lost.

Side two opens with "Goodnight/Goodbye" and is about a marriage that has become a shell of two people living together without love or emotion. They are going through the routine, neither willing to admit the truth that it's over and rather they would sink with the ship as the song says.
The details in this song help carry the feeling of truth in the words.

I'm gonna ask about your day
You'll just smile and look away
As you turn the hall light out
You'll ask me how work was
Put on an old t-shirt
As you turn the cover down

"Just Like Me" is the story of a man that changes his habits after his love leaves him. She thinks she knows him and can't understand why he acts the way he is acting now, but he is a different man without her.

"Highway Wings" is the song of a man wanting to get out of a small broken down town.

While "Just Like Me" is told mainly from the man's POV as being in the right, "Where Do We Go From Down" takes that POV and twists it, with the singer admiting that he..."stole from you things no one should steal/And I made in you hurt that no one should feel." From his point there is no hope, he's screwed up too much to be forgiven.

The final song "Too Late Too Soon" is a man's plea to be given a second chance. He knows he has no chance in getting that respite but he still holds out some hope that she might reconsider even though she won't.

In a year with a lot of Big Name album releases, and some great music from these Big Names and even some smaller names, this is one of the best albums of the year. Will has always had a certain sound in his voice, but here it just carries the emotions even more. How much different would this album had been if it had been released a year ago, before his accident we'll never know, but I'm glad to have it here as it is.

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ALBUM REVIEWS

Carry The Light by Kelly Richey

Kelley Richey is a woman that knows how to play the blues. She's been playing since a young age and has been compared to everyone from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Janis Joplin. If you like your music with a blues/rock edge this is for you. She's not inventing anything new on this cd, but she takes the familiar and makes it her own her. While I might not place her on an equal footing with Stevie Ray I would say that she is a very talented guitarist and certainly knows how to play very well.

ALBUM REVIEWS

Brother Joscephus and the Love Revival Revolution Orchestra

This is an self titled album with a mouthful for a title, but it's a name you should remember. This is a band and an event, created by a man from New York but evoking the music and world of New Orleans. When I put this cd in my player and the first song "A Child Shall Lead" started I had to check the linear notes to make sure that this wasn't a record made in New Orleans. It has the good time, fun feel of the best music from the crescent city. Their description of their music is that it....

blends together the perfect gumbo of New Orleans party music, Soul in the style of Ray Charles and Al Green, a good helping of jam-bandy Roots Rock and a righteous splash of good, upbeat Gospel without the religious overtones (we like to call it "Secular Gospel").

This is an album I've listened to many times already. A Child Shall Lead, Bon Temps Roulez, O Moses, Bury Me In New Orleans are great songs. When he slows down and plays more of a love song he loses some of that energy, but luckily most of the songs more than make up for any such lack with more than enough spirit.

ALBUM REVIEWS

Hummingbird, Go!
by Theresa Andersson

This is the fifth release of Theresa Andersson. Each album is different from the previous. Her albums have ranged from jazz to americana to pop. Her live shows show a different side of the singer, where she truly lets go and rocks out a lot harder than she has shown yet on disc.

Her newest album is a departure from what she has done so far. Her last album was the self named ep that came out right after Katrina. The hurricane actually stopped the work on the album she was working on and the singer and her record company wanted to get something out for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Theresa is one of the top sellers at the record tent at the Fest. So they took what they had done for the album and made it an ep. And created one of the best for the year of 2006. That album was closer to Americana than her previous work.

Her newest album followed the same sort of trajectory of that one. For this year's Jazz Fest she again wasn't finished with the full album, so she released an ep "I The River" in time for the Festival. The full album "Hummingbird, Go" has finally been released this week. Of the five songs from the ep only 3 appear on the album. Anyone expecting Theresa to continue on the path towards Americana will be disappointed, but she has crafted something completely different and good.

For this album this was pretty much a one woman show. Theresa pretty much plays all the instruments on this album, which consists of the normal ones but also bottles and whatever else she could find in her kitchen to carry a tune. She recorded the album in her kitchen. Fellow Swedish poets Ane Brun and Jessica Faust supply the lyrics to Theresa's music and the whole thing was mixed by fellow Swede Tobias Froberg.

The album is a pop masterpiece. The songs are fun and sing a long. This is different from her latest work and from her previous live shows, but it is very good. Her singing has never sounded better and the music is a wonder. The songs mix the pop of her native country's group Abba with New Orleans and Amerciana to create a psychedelic potpourri. On "God's Highway" she moves closest to her previous style of Americana. The opener "Na Na Na" is an otherwordly gem that would have made a great summer hit.

Buy the album, and if she tours near you catch her live show, it's amazing watching her re create the one woman act of recording the album live.

ALBUM REVIEWS

Stay Positive by the Hold Steady

Most critics are calling this the best album of the year and you know what, they may be right. Just a little over halfway into the year it's hard to definitely declare one album the best of the year, but I know this one will be in the list for the top ten. The Hold Steady are a rock fan's dream come true; the band where all in the early thirties and pretty much given up on any type of career in music when they came together to form the Hold Steady. At first the purpose of the group was to just have fun playing music and not record a album or tour. Before long the group was doing both and after 2006's Boys and Girls In America the group was touring the world and opening for the Rolling Stones.

The lead singer Craig Finn has loosened up his singing style from what was more of a talking type style to actually singing on the new album. The songs are stories from our lives, they write of people struggling to come to grips with their failures and shortcomings and celebrating their joy at being alive. Within their songs they tell stories of ordinary people and what they are experiencing. The lead singer says he considers this album about aging gracefully.

"Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer
I think he might have been our only decent teacher
Getting older makes it harder to remember
We are our only saviours."

The Hold Steady still believe in the miracle of music to transform lives. There is a lot of religious imagery on this album, but in the end they hold onto the fact that while God might not be able to save us, music still can.

Album Review: Real Animal by Alejandro Escovedo

With the year just about half way over I can safely say that this album is one of the best of the year so far. Escovedo writes of his personal life but can translate it so the listener can relate to it.

A few years back Escovedo was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. This album is a look back at the life he's lived and the music he's made. The songs talk about his days back in the punk group the Nuns to his time in the Americana group Rank n File with Chip and Tony Kinman. The songs range from pop to strings to garage sound.

The album opens with the most pop song on the album "Always A Friend." This song belongs on the radio and puts to shame most of what is being played today. This album is what real rock and roll is about. In the final song Escovedo talks about what this music has meant to him all his life: "Close your eyes and you can hear/The music in the wind/Out on the pier/That's the Ike and Tina Soul Revue/I don't know what this means to you/But it was everything to me."

In today's world, where so much of the music that comes out is created in the studio by some Mastermind with machines that could make me sound good and that has his eye towards the bottom line it's nice to see music that is made from the heart and soul.