Chiming, tough country-rock Americana
This Pennsylvania quartet’s second album opens with a combination of country, rock and ringing guitars so deft you’d be hard-pressed not to hum the verses and sing the chorus their second time around. The lyrics of “Heartbreaker” lash out in the best wounded-but-prideful pop tradition, dragging out the words in enervated late-night heartache. The worn spirit remains for “Heritage,” but as the ire of a railroad driver’s frustration with an overtaxing, unresponsive government. The song is driven by the drums’ steady march beat, with electric guitars adding country-rock grit. Recorded at Johnny Cash’s cabin studio (with John Carter Cash producing), the lyrics provide a contrast to the elder Cash’s nostalgic songs of railroading, yet still match the man in black’s respect for the underclasses. The driver of “Truck Driving Man” is also wearied, fatalistically worn from a working man’s pains.
Several of the album’s songs suggest open plains and Western landscapes, similar to the Sadies’ recent New Seasons CD. A farmer’s armed defense of his land in “In the Morning” could just as easily be set a hundred years ago as today, and the gambling drifter/drunk of “Highway 9” could be found wandering a stretch of asphalt or a dusty trail. Bassist Randy Krater steps to the microphone for the country waltz “The Ride,” a song whose allusions intertwine a dying love, suicide and the light of the hereafter. More traditional are the honky-tonk broken hearts of “Our Little Secret” and “Right all the Wrongs,” the latter a weepy waltz that opens with the drunken, a capella moan “I guess I closed the bar again tonight.” Tears rain down from the pedal steel of Ralph Mooney and fiddle of Laura Cash.
The bluegrass edged “Big Ol’ Freight Train” sports the more traditional theme of a love taken away, though one has to wonder why the singer’s mate was taken away on a freight train. Maybe she’s a brakeman or hobo. Two of the band’s influences are paid straightforward homage, starting with the tumbling, introspective poetry of “Seat 24” and its melodic reinterpretation of “Mr. Tambourine.” This is followed by the E-Street styled “Middle of the Night,” replete with wordy, rapid-fire rhymes and a Clarence Clemons inspired sax solo. Each feels like a writing exercise that ended up too close to its source, but they’re a minor distraction from the band’s original material, Todd Bartolo’s engaging vocals and the band’s muscular Americana sound. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com] 