Tag: monoblogue music

If you are ever out San Diego way, you might just run into Kevin Thomas. Just look for the upbeat guy enjoying life with the positive vibes.

There are ten tracks on his album, which has already hit the streets. (You can get a reasonably good taste of the style and vibe from the first single, The Big Picture. That is, if you don’t mind Spotify too much.)

In reading his bio, I came across a line that put his album into better focus for me.

On that fateful evening, influenced by the energy that it was also his birthday, he was previously at another club watching a heavy, angst-ridden band play. There he found that it was almost as if his soul was rejecting the music being played. He soon left the club and found himself in another club soaking up an artist performing with just an acoustic guitar, his songs, and his voice. “I noticed then that different vibrations of music can have either harmful or life-enhancing effects on the body and mind, that certain sounds can actually help you evolve spiritually.” he says. The path to A New Heart had begun.

from Kevin Thomas’s website bio.

I don’t think there’s a drop of angst in this one. And as Kevin is a longtime songwriter I can’t complain at all about the musical writing skills or the arrangements, which range from the more pop-styled Money Tree, Let Your Arrow Fly, and Mirror Mirror to the more jazz-funk Time and an upbeat track like Comfort Zone.

But there are some more hidden gems and quirks awaiting listeners as well: the intriguing opening and a cappella bridges of Reinvent Yourself, a more midtempo On My Way Out, and closer The Best Luck Around prove Kevin has more than one gear.

The only real complaint I have – and perhaps this is a matter of vocal taste – is that I don’t think Kevin has the voice to always carry out his intentions. The unevenness is what keeps a good song like the initial single The Big Picture from being a great song, yet songs that frame his voice well like the sort of Sublime-like High On Chocolate become the best ones on the album. Yet I could still imagine an Ocean City bar loving The Big Picture with its Caribbean flavor, so your mileage may vary.

As you may know, I tell people to listen for themselves. The piece of information I was given was that the album would be available March 29, but it appears he already has the music and availability on his band website. So I would go check that out if you like something in a more pop-rock edging slightly toward classic rock vein.

This is going to be a “value-added” review. I was originally asked to write on the single and video in the title, which this Brooklyn-based band put out back on February 8. However, one of the links was to the advance review copy of the album that The Starman is featured on, called “Final Notice!” So I’m going to talk about that a little bit, in part because The Starman is very representative of the collection as a whole.

Like I said, the video and single came out last month and, rather than make you deal with Spotify I’ll just embed the video for your viewing pleasure. It’s the same song.

Trust me, this video is nowhere near as weird as their first one from the album, the initial single Right In Your I.

But if you didn’t get the vibe from the latest video – which, admittedly, needs a lot of explanation to allow me to “get it” – you might correctly imagine this album would almost have been more at home dropping in 1979 than 2019. Strangely enough, the influential records listed by the band for their forthcoming full-length are smack dab representative of that album rock era.

I can hear a lot of those influences – or at least the ones that I know, since I haven’t listened to every track therein – on “Final Notice!”, which I believe is slated to come out in mid-April. And I have to say that, while all the songs are different enough to hold your interest, there’s really not a bad one in the bunch. Obviously there are some I like better than others, such as First In Space and March Forth (the latter really should be released to the world on Monday, naturally) but they all are pretty enjoyable in their own right. And the cool thing is that they can use 2019 technology now to make 1979 sound even better.

Now if you believe the backstory to this album – and after watching their videos there are a couple doubts creeping into my mind, but we’ll go ahead and roll with it – this band was a successor project for lead singer Greg Jiritano after he a) did a 6-year “extreme sonic experimentation” with a collaborator and band that produced music which couldn’t be performed live and went unreleased, and b) decided after plan A didn’t pan out to do a DIY project only to have the studio burn to the ground shortly before its release, destroying all of his work. So you are listening to plan C, which may very well be a good name for a band or album. (The rest of the Unifier band: Tyler Wood on keyboards, Derek Nievergelt on bass, and drummer Carmine Covelli. With a name like that, he had to be a drummer.)

Given the subtle but pleasing strangeness of Lord Sonny the Unifier and their album from another era, I can’t say plan C wasn’t the correct play.

This is another review of a monoblogue music alumni, and it’s an album that was a long time in the making.

You may recall back in January, when I followed up on my previous top 5’s, that Rich had been in the studio over the early part of 2018 but “the trail (seemed) to have grown cold.” This review is the bloodhound regaining the scent.

As it turned out, this album came out at the back end of 2018 but rather quietly, considering the album release party didn’t occur until just a couple weeks ago. And Juma was there: Juma Sultan is a longtime percussionist whose initial claim to fame was sharing the Woodstock stage with Jimi Hendrix. That bloodline is immediately set forth on the album’s first track, Hey Baby (New Rising Sun), which was a song Hendrix wrote and performed.

I can’t say whether The Groove’s version is as good as the original because it’s not a Hendrix track I’m familiar with. What I can say is that, if I didn’t know it was a remake, I’d be digging it anyway as a seriously good jam.

“Jammin’ With Juma” is a good mixture of covers that I knew and some variant of the following: covers which were so obscure that a Google search couldn’t dig them up, or stuff that Rich had kept in his back pocket. In the category of covers I knew you can place the old Eric Burdon song Spill The Wine and a song originally by Freddie Scott and redone by a solo Ron Wood called Am I Grooving You? (That one came via Rich’s song listing on his band’s website.) The remake of Wine starts out a little shaky but improves as it goes, while the take on Grooving is that of a more straight-ahead rock song placed on a sea of very psychedelic relics and jams.

There are two other songs on here that are only done once. I honestly thought Ghosts of Jimi was also a cover, but the other song that has a similar title isn’t the same track. Too bad for it, because The Groove made this song into a jam band tune with very catchy lyrics. Similarly, Paranoia Blues isn’t the version Paul Simon made famous: instead, this one has a large Tom Petty influence with a really cool outro.

I say “only done once” because the final two tracks on “Jammin’ With Juma” are reworked versions of two previous songs. Be Here Now is already a strangely successful interplay of a hint of dub music (lots of echo) with some country overtones. I noted on the original play (it’s track number three on the record) that it had a good jam band potential but seemed rushed to finish – well, the producer picked it up with a reprise in track eight for an extra minute and a half to a more satisfactory close.

The other example is track two: the heavily reggae Seven Sunsets, which is nicely done except for being a touch weak on the vocals. On the last track this one is really dubbed out and (naturally) rechristened Sunset Dub (Head Mix). The song is definitely made different by the effects.

But as I generally say, you’re the best judge of what’s good to your ears so feel free to listen for yourself. I know I liked this one a lot, and although it’s waaaaaay too early to consider this year’s top 5 I can see “Jammin’ With Juma” being a contender.

This one is so new they haven’t even finished the cover art for it. I’m told this is the cover photo for (presumably) a debut EP by a 22-year-old artist from my old neck of the woods, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Damon Mitchell has a 6-song EP ready for release on March 2, so I’ve listened to the tracks but they’re still under wraps except for the title track, which is the lead single and video I’ll feature in a short bit below. Perhaps it’s a good thing Elise is the last in line but the first song out of the chute because it’s the best and most accessible tune on the album. (Saving the best for last?) I’m not so sure about the video, though, although we also learn that Mitchell is a southpaw when it comes to playing.

As Damon is a rather young musician, it helps to explain why his style is all over the place on this one. As presented in my preview, the leadoff song Heist is a Beatle-influenced ode to a pop era gone by, although he freshens up the genre and makes it a rather enjoyable song.

Damon slows things down with the ballad Just A Face, which begins to expose a few of the cracks in the facade. Some of the vocals on this one aren’t quite up to snuff, particularly when Damon tries to hit the higher notes. Shaping songs to his voice is something he’ll surely learn as time goes on.

License Plate is more of a country or bluegrass turn, with the addition of fiddle and harmonica. (In the credits there are a total of 12 musicians listed for the six-song EP, so Mitchell had plenty of help.) The problem with this song to me was the way the lyrical runs played out – again, practice and experience will help the cause here.

If you’re waiting on an adult contemporary song, you’ll find the music on the song Salo but the lyrics don’t really evoke romance. Aside from a clever reference to The Weight by The Band, I really didn’t care for the lyrics on Salo at all. They seemed stilted and forced. Maybe this is a song he revisits later on, using the riff to write something better.

Damon turns even more to the jazzy side of things with World In Her Eyes. But again the weakness in the song comes from the lyrics and singing. Completing the circle back to the vibe of Heist but going a couple notches heavier is the title track, which has as its coda some solid guitar work.

So while there are obvious flaws in this six-song EP, they are definitely fixable for the next time, and it’s likely a little bit of experience will help Mitchell work some of these issues out. I don’t mind complex or unconventional lyrics at all, but they need a special amount of talent to be done just right. Once Damon figures out his strengths and writes music in such a way to maximize them, he could do all right for himself. He’s just not quite there yet.

Since he has several shows lined up in the Indiana region (coming as close as Pittsburgh for a gig this spring) I think Damon will get some practice in. On March 2 you’ll see what I mean.

This was one of the hardest reviews I had to write, and it wasn’t really because I lost the original draft of it on my phone. Rather, this was one that I couldn’t categorize because there wasn’t a pigeonhole I could place Moore’s music in to make my life easier. It could be the various influences of place: Moore is a Kansas native who’s traveled the globe and now makes his home in the unlikely musical hotbed of Hong Kong.

He’s also a prolific musician as this was his second full-length solo album of 2018, after June’s “Lapis Lazuli.” But Moore cut his teeth on the college circuit as part of an acoustic group two decades ago, later creating an “expat” band called Tea Thieves when he lived in Hungary. I’ll come back to them in a bit, but first I’ll talk about the issues I had with “Spark.”

Moore’s album is one with some serious storytelling, as I found when I listened to the album on the Bandcamp website, which features the lyrics for most of the songs. As far as that goes, it’s fine, but the problem I ran into was that his actual music is like the frame to a painting; put another way, he has an album which reminds the listener of the background music that plays while the movie’s dialogue continues. If you set aside the brief spoken Prologue and Epilogue you still have 12 songs that are densely filled with lyrics that range from the thought-provoking to the obtuse – oftentimes within the space of two lines. As most of the songs are done without instrumental bridges – thus clocking at no more than four minutes, and often under three – it’s so much so that the music is not even noticed.

I’m going to use an example of both thought-provoking and obtuse here. This song is called Noodles.

To hear Moore tell it, he says, “Apologies can be difficult.  Sometimes we express them through our actions and not necessarily our words.  When we cook, we transform raw ingredients into something new and wonderful.  In this song, underneath a simple recipe lies an apology with the hope of transformation.” Or maybe it’s just four-dimensional chess. To me this was one of the worst offenders of being trite and obtuse.

I mentioned the band Tea Thieves earlier. Tucked away at the end of “Spark” is a bonus track he did with the band called The Lens. The fact that it’s far and away the best song on the album to me tells me that maybe the band needs to come back together. Sadly, it’s the fourteen tracks of basically bland filler that came before that left the impression. But I’ll link again to Bandcamp if you want to listen (and judge) for yourself.

This will turn out to be a second (and longer) helping from a monoblogue music alumnus – I reviewed a single from a previous EP last year – although at this point in time only the title track is available for listening or watching as a video. (The remainder of the four-song package is slated to come out this coming Monday, January 28.)

So how about the “Sum Of All Parts” as an album? Well, the title track seemed like a cynical look at a relationship but turned out to have a happy ending. It’s a very accessible pop song that should find a lot of interest if the radio industry will allow it. That’s backed up by the acoustic open to Failure Is My Friend, which turns out to be a bouncy, almost country-feeling entry into the adult-contemporary field.

The weakest song is Bone Dry – while it has nice slow-to-fast transitions that I liked, the most annoying part is hearing (loudly) the fingering of chord changes on the acoustic guitar. It makes the song seem underproduced and not thought through for some reason. (Otherwise, Mark had the sense to use Dan Fisher of Audio Heart Records – the label this will be released on – as his producer for his second EP after doing so on “Spirits.”)

The closing track of Highs And Lows is a good closer to the collection, blending a touch of country-rock in with his continental sound. It works well with his voice and probably will be a popular tune when Mark embarks on a six-week run of live appearances around his current home in Austria, a tour that will also have a lengthy run in Germany.

Aside from the modern-day marketing strategy of releasing just a few songs at once as an EP rather than the old days of 10- or 12-song albums with a handful intended as singles and the rest there to fill out the record, Mark reminds me of a ’70’s throwback in sound and feel. (Younger members of Gen X and Millennials – let alone any of my Gen Z readers – will have to go find a ’70’s pop music channel and listen for a couple hours to notice the arrangements and styles are distinct from those prevalent a decade earlier or later, let alone nearly a half-century now.) Maybe it was a little different in Europe, but either way Mark seems to me a 1970’s throwback – he even has a little of that look, but fortunately not the awful style of dress – and it’s Saturday. (Regarding those ’70’s styles: trust me, none of my late elementary to junior high pictures are going on Facebook.)

But when this comes out Monday – and assuming Mark quickly adds that to the title single that’s already on Spotify, although he has a very nice website, too – those who like the sort of station “you can listen to at work” because it has the sort of music that’s honest and not just about beats and bass should give this a chance. And who knows? If there’s enough interest, maybe he’ll give this side of the pond a go.

As promised, this is a fun little feature I’m calling quick hits: a paragraph or two (as opposed to full reviews) on new releases in 2018 from those artists who made up my previous top 5 lists from 2014-18. Rank has its privileges.

It gives me a chance to use my headings, too.

“I’m Not Country Enough” by Michael Van and the Movers

Follows on: “A Little More Country” (2016)

If you are a country fan, Michael Van and the Movers will definitely work out of your comfort zone with this one. But they are correct in subtitling this one “Cowboy Reggae and Other Atrocities.” (And yes, they do cowboy reggae – it’s really quite cool.)

Consider that I have the perspective of not being able to stand most modern country (i.e. not a country fan) and realize that I really enjoyed listening to the songs where MV&tM stretched the genre. (There are a share of tracks that are more reflective of classic country and bluegrass, too.) Those divergent songs will probably never be on country radio – at least not your formulaic “iHeartCountry” station most markets of any size have – but those who perform in the genre would do well to listen to this one and take notes.

“Weakened at the Asylum” by Midwest Soul Xchange

Follows on: “New American Century” (2015, reviewed 2016)

This one took a stab at being a rock opera, one set against the backdrop of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. But I just don’t think they really pulled off the two most important parts: clear storytelling and memorably good songs. While they haven’t really changed their musical style, this one just didn’t grab me by the collar – in part because there’s no hook song on this one as there were on “New American Century.”

One thing I would advise is to listen to it in order and maybe you can figure out all the parts I missed. This was a definite step backward to me.

“The Last Ride” by The Magic Lightnin’ Boys

Follows on: “Stealin’ Thunder” (2016)

I tell you what: I sure hope the rumors of TMLB’s demise are just rumors. But if they are not, the four acoustic remakes of their previous work and the four new songs are a superb way to make one last ride and say goodbye.

There are a lot of bands over the years who have lived by straddling the line between blues and rock; sadly, they are becoming less and less prevalent these days as everyone wants to cross over to rap and hip-hop by making the drums and bass most prominent. I’m pleased to say the bass and drums are put in their place on this one, which shows great talent and musicianship. A formal review of this would have put the collection in my top 5 once again, so treat yourself and take a listen. Even Spotify knew better than to interrupt this one.

“Shadow of a Stone: Songs of Remembrance” (EP) by Geoff Gibbons

Follows on “Buffalo Hotel” (2017, reviewed 2018).

(Also being reviewed are two of his three 2018 singles, Rollin’ Free and Fall Girl.  The third was the holiday tune Lonely Old Christmas.)

On Geoff’s two singles, he continues his smooth pairing of a classic country sound and adult contemporary vibe with a pair of songs that tell their tales of loss and longing well. But he tops this in a more biting way with the three-song EP “Shadow of a Stone,” using the theme of being a soldier to produce music that really should make him very successful in attracting discerning listeners. If you like mature music, Geoff may be the singer for you.

Something I’ve noticed about various bands is the emphasis they put on internet radio airplay. Instead, Geoff seems to have carved out a niche in performing live for a select few – I noticed on his calendar a particular place he plays several times a week. Maybe that’s where the veteran performer – whose eponymous first album came out 24 years ago – wants to be, but he has the musical ability to go a little further.

So that’s a look at what some of my “top 5” artists have been doing over the last year. Next week I have one other special review to do before I return to doing the reviews from my regular source two weeks hence.

It’s become one of my favorite first-of-the-year traditions: the annual “where are they now?” following of groups which have landed in my top 5 albums from each year. I now have five years’ worth of them to follow, a total of 25 in all although some of them are no longer active. For the purpose of this exercise, if the band or group released new music, played some shows, or even did social media in 2018 I would consider them active.

My 2014 crop included five groups: Billy Roberts and the Rough Riders, the Tomas Doncker Band, The Lost Poets, Monks of Mellonwah (now inactive), and Paul Maged.

While Billy Roberts is still on the full-length 2017 release “Greenbah,” last year he put out a pair of singles: the brassy but rocking Hillbilly Blues and the more somber re-release of a 2015 song, Gone to the Dogs. He’s staying somewhat country, but trends more toward pop with these songs.

At the beginning of 2018, Tomas Doncker (as a solo artist) did a 10th anniversary reprise of a collaboration with poet Yusef Komunyakaa called “The Mercy Suite.” But more recently his True Groove record label announced they’re putting out yet another take on Doncker’s 2015 release “The Mess We Made” dubbed “A Slight Return” in February. So the band is on a hiatus of sorts, or perhaps it’s morphed into the very active “True Groove All-Stars.” In either case, I don’t think moss is growing under Doncker’s feet.

In that same vein, The Lost Poets are still promoting the short film Insubordia Pt. III – which has played at a half-dozen film festivals – but, more importantly, have an upcoming single to be released January 19 called River Runs Dry. One thing I missed in their 2017 update was a neat single called Vulture that I would love to see included in their next full-length, whenever that is. Will it be Insubordia Pt. IV or have they mined that genre? Stay tuned.

While I await the third part of his proposed trilogy (2018’s “The Glass River” was part 2), Paul Maged put out a heavy rock single on Election Day eve called The Resistance. To say he’s no fan of Donald Trump would be an understatement, so it will be intriguing to see how that influences his 2019.

Moving up to 2015, the groups who won that year were Idiot Grins, The Liquorsmiths, Tumbler, Space Apaches, and solo artist Jas Patrick. (The latter two are now inactive.)

While Idiot Grins didn’t put out any new material in 2018, their most recent release of the album “State of Health” came out late enough in 2017 that they are still putting out singles – the most recent being Take It Back, which is charting on digital radio, according to a recent Tweet by the band.

Similarly, but on the flip side of the business, they’re still working from their 2016 album “All My Friends Are Fighters.” But instead of pushing for digital radio airplay, The Liquorsmiths are still doing the occasional live show around their San Diego home.

Lost in the runup to Christmas was the release of a new 2-song EP (for lack of a better term) by Tumbler called “The Power of the Song.” I just happened to stumble across it on Amazon Music, meaning I’ve only found samples to listen to – from the little I could tell, it sounds much like their earlier work. But on social media they’re promising, “We’ve already got some new things in the works for you in 2019!” so I will take them at their word.

From 2016, the groups in question were Michael Van and the Movers, Midwest Soul Xchange, Jim Peterik, Steve Hussey and Jake Eddy, and The Magic Lightnin’ Boys.

Lamenting that “I’m Not Country Enough,” Michael Van and the Movers put out an album in September that claims to have “Cowboy Reggae and other Atrocities.” This follow-up to “A Little More Country” that I reviewed is being supported by the occasional show around their California base.

Topping that, though, Midwest Soul Xchange put out their own album in November and supported it with a mini-tour through their home region last fall and plans for a more ambitious tour spreading eastward into Michigan slated for this coming spring. That’s appropriate given “Weakened At The Asylum” is described by the band as “a story (which) centers around the water crisis in Flint, MI, and follows the lives of several fictional characters as they navigate through unspeakable tragedy.”

The purple-haired one, Jim Peterik, is apparently taking a bit of a break from a solo career to do some new stuff with his old band, The Ides of March – an album that will include a guest gig from Mark Farner. Midwest-raised people like me would know that name, as he used to play for the Michigan-based Grand Funk Railroad. His other iron in the fire is the World Stage project, which has a recent collaboration with Dennis DeYoung of Styx for an upcoming show/album. Throw in a spring 2019 cruise for good measure and one of two things is true: either Jim is putting musicians a third of his age to shame or he’s got a great social media guru making up good stuff.

From what I’ve been able to gather, Steve Hussey and Jake Eddy still occasionally collaborate but are apparently working on different musical projects on an individual basis. Their joint website is no more and the combined social media page wasn’t updated in 2018.

Conversely, the previously-described demise of The Magic Lightnin’ Boys was more of a hiatus. They returned last month with an album combining some new songs with acoustic versions of older tunes called “The Last Ride.” Whether that is the last ride or not remains to be seen, but I’m hoping for more. In the meantime I will place those last three in the “semi-active” category insofar as continuing in their reviewed form.

2017’s top 5 (Revolushn, Rich Lerner and the Groove, Justin Allen and the Well Shots, Free Willy, and Freddie Nelson) is, as you might expect, still building on those releases.

For example, a brief California tour next month and a recent single called Little Red Dolls means Revolushn is still doing their best version of “American protest rock.”

But a funny thing seems to have happened to Rich Lerner and the Groove. While they went to studio in the spring of 2018 to follow up on “Push On Thru,” the trail seems to have grown cold insofar as that goes. But Rich and his band had a (slightly delayed) Groove Jam VII benefit concert in September and have been playing around their area over the last few months, so maybe 2019 is the year for a follow-up.

A couple of these groups have entered radio silence, though. Justin Allen and the Well Shots, who slated some shows in the spring of 2018, has abandoned social media and their website at some point since. So they may have done their last well shot for all I know. Similarly, Free Willy pops in on social media once in awhile but doesn’t seem to be making any progress on new music.

Meanwhile, Freddie Nelson continues to pick up airplay for songs off his “Shake The Cage” album and the occasional show around his native Pittsburgh area.

Last week I revealed 2018’s top 5, which were Maxwell James, Geoff Gibbons, Peak, Jared Weiss, and Justin Shapiro.

Of course, some of these artists just recently released their albums but I saw Maxwell James is promising a new song in the new year as he plays around Nashville. Interestingly enough, his song Roll Down Your Window Slowly made the top 200 digital radio charts in October, just a few slots behind Inspiration Nation by Justin Shapiro off his #1 album. Completely random but worth mentioning.

Geoff Gibbons has kept busy with three singles (including a Christmas song) and an EP taking up his 2018 – bear in mind I reviewed “Buffalo Hotel” almost a full calendar year ago and it had already been out several months prior to my review. So we’re talking about a year and a half for Geoff, and he’s made good use of the time.

Another group that’s been resting on an album for awhile is Peak, since we’re closing in on a year since their “Electric Bouquet” came out. They’ve been doing their share of shows around the New York area, but no word quite yet on new stuff.

The same goes for fellow New Yorker Jared Weiss, who has so many irons in the fire I don’t know when he’ll have time to do a follow up to his 2018 album.

The good news on the Justin Shapiro front is that we are slated for a live EP sometime in early 2019 as he continues to play in the area. Maybe we can get an Eastern Shore appearance? He is from the D.C. area, you know.

So that’s a wrap on my 2019 followup. Or is it? I think next week I am going to try something new as a companion to this piece: some “quick hit” (meaning a paragraph or two) reviews of music these previous top 5 artists put out in 2018. It should be fun to revisit their music as they develop. I also have a special treat in mind for January 19, so stay tuned.

This is another record I came across in an unusual way. Atlanta-based musician Kate Coleman is friends with a group I reviewed back in October called Highbeams. (They actually served as an opening act to one of her recent shows.) So she wrote me recently and asked if I would take a listen to this one, and since I had a dearth of albums this year to contend for a top 5 I said to myself, sure, why not.

Both Coleman and the Highbeams group have a similarity in that they “perch on the ledge that exists between folk, rock, country, Americana, and adult contemporary;” however, if all these genres were made into a Venn diagram I would place Coleman closest to the country, rock, and Americana circles. Take the opening track Run Katie, Run – it’s a song that has a rockabilly tenor and more than likely crossover appeal. Like several songs on the album Katie has its minor flaws, like how it gets less interesting when it slows down, but there are facets where it shines, too, such as its coda.

If you ever wondered what Janis Joplin would have sounded like doing country, the answer may be in Do It Anyway, with a tasty bit of organ for good measure. It reminded me a bit of the stylings of a dear, departed friend of mine who graced these pages a number of times before her untimely passing three years ago this month. Reaching even farther back, I got the mental picture of a old Western swing two-step as Kate sang I’m Sorry, with a yodeling-like rendition of the title lyric.

Reverting back toward the modern day maybe a generation or so, I recall my mom and dad had a record where the artist was praised as one erasing the long-standing line between country and pop. If it weren’t already gone, Why Can’t You See? would have finished the job. (By the way, I’m talking about early 70’s pop, not the pop modern country merged with a couple decades back only to further dilute itself in recent years with homages to rock/rap/hip-hop.) Later on, the song Tomorrow also comes out to me as a throwback from four decades past. (That’s a bit of irony, isn’t it?)

Learning To Fly is not a remake of Pink Floyd, but instead comes across as a track that would be radio-friendly with a bit of pruning up front – the chant-like open doesn’t really help the song. Get it down to 3 1/2 minutes and it may be a winner if that’s what she wants. (Sometimes it’s hard to edit, as I know from experience. Why do you think I write a blog?)

The same can be said of Don’t, the second of two consecutive songs that could be singles if a little shorter – it’s a song that seeps its way from a weepy ballad to a more modern country track. But a strange bridge detracts a bit from that one, too. She doesn’t have to be like modern country – we have more than enough of that rot.

I credit Coleman with taking some chances on this album. A couple songs where the risk pays off with a reward are the countrified blues of Nothing At All, which features very tight harmony, and the weird dichotomy of the title track Past, a song which strangely evoked in my ears a cross between country and a rock opera that somehow gets pulled off in an enjoyable manner. It’s weird, but a good weird.

Kate wraps up with the acoustic and slow fade of What Comes Next? If I were to have a complaint about track order, it seems to me that the album sort of peters out halfway through, losing some of its energy and charm. It would be better to listen to this one on shuffle, for sure.

This may be the longest album review I’ve written this year, and it’s surprising because I wasn’t handed a lot of background information on the band. A look at the album on Bandcamp, which is a fine place to listen for yourself, shows that Coleman had a batch of helpers who supplied the usual Americana instruments: mandolin, dobro, and fiddle complement the standard drums, bass, and guitar. (Among other things, Kate played guitar, percussion, and tin whistle – which was something I had to look up!)

As a first effort, Kate has been wise enough not to self-produce and that helps to curb most of the excesses. In the eight months since she released “Past” she’s also released an album of collaborations with other (presumably) Atlanta-area artists (plus an intriguing solo take on The Cranberries’ hit Zombie) as well as a live album featuring most of these songs from “Past.”

Since she asked nicely, besides the review I’m going to give her a bit of (somewhat, but not completely tongue-in-cheek) advice. At her website as currently comprised, there’s a photo of her holding a Miller Lite. First of all, we here on our little corner of the Eastern Shore can turn her on to far, far better beer than that and secondly she might fit right in as a performer. Granted, it’s a bit of a hike from Georgia but piece together a couple other local dates and you never know.

With this I call it a year for reviews: next week will be my top 5 for 2018. This one isn’t the slam dunk for inclusion like one I did last weekend, but it is a contender as I give a second (or third, or fourth) listen to some of the other albums in past 2018 reviews.