Soulful, rustic rock ‘n’ roll with blue country edges

Will Hoge is a soulful, rustic rock ‘n’ roller whose career has mostly stayed under the mainstream radar. Yet he’s not only turned out a consistent string of fine records over the past decade, but toured tirelessly in their support. His initial two albums with Atlantic didn’t build a short enough on-ramp to stardom to keep the label’s interest, but a few indie releases caught the ear of Rykodisc, for whom he’s now releasing his second full-length. Hoge’s music takes in the rootsy guitar rock of Mellencamp and Petty (the latter of whose singing style makes a big impression on “Long Gone,” itself co-authored with ace songwriter Jim Lauderdale), but also the strained angst of Daughtry, the wavery worry of Gin Blossoms, the throbbing blood-vessel edginess of Joe Cocker, and the soulfulness of Paul Carrack-era Squeeze. There are blues and country edgings as well, as befits a musician who hails from the South and has repeatedly toured the roadhouses of America.

Recorded partly before and partly after a serious motor scooter accident, the album is only indirectly colored by Hoge’s trauma and recovery. His themes continue to center around well-worn tropes of love, its struggles, pains and powers, and though he’s mostly adding shading to that which has been written before, his voice carries the sort of emotion that explains why these topics persist and repeat in popular music. Even the album’s title song is about the aftermath of a relationship rather than the physical collision that interrupted the recording of the album. Similarly misdirecting is the title “Even if it Breaks Your Heart” which strays from interpersonal tug-of-wars to take a heartfelt look of how music hooked Hoge into a lifelong calling. Rather than spending his recovery writing big picture songs, Hoge rededicated himself to the daily intimacies that add themselves up without a songwriter having to connect all the dots. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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