No Face Music 42

The Mavericks - Play The Hits, album review

Pretty Damn Pretty

Because I am listening to it now, and not for the first time which says something in having so much other music to hear, I will simply state how much I am enjoying. As I will have written before on this site, I am far from adverse to cover songs/albums, or to ‘pretty’ music, not that this fits entirely into that summation, having its own familiar swing/TexMex leanings, but what does distinguish as with everything The Mavericks do is the sublime vocal of Raul Malo, especially on these two, Before the Next Teardop Falls and Hungry Heart. I do think Why Can’t She Be You is damn pretty though.

Two Faces 30

Black Stone Cherry - Black To Blues, Vol. 2, album review

Heavy and Loud

I'm keeping this simple: I wanted something loud and heavy, any which way, and so this is doing just fine.

It is back to the blues, the roots, but played with the heavy gusto of now. Favourite is the Otis Rush All Your Love (I Miss Loving) that makes me think back to my first hearing from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. This great song - and the rest - isn't complex, just the repetition of riff and lyrical declaration:

All the loving is loving, all the kissin' is kissing
All the loving is loving, all the kissin' is kissing
Before I met you baby, never knew what I was missing

 

All your love, pretty baby, that I got in store for you
All your love, pretty baby, that I got in store for you
I love you pretty baby, well I say you love me too

 

All your loving, pretty baby, all your loving, pretty baby
All your loving, pretty baby, all your loving, pretty baby
Since I first met you baby, I never knew what I was missing

 

Hey, hey baby, hey, hey baby
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby, oh, oh, baby
Since I first met you baby, never knew what I was missing

 

 

Two Faces Music 29

SUSS - High Line, album review

Ambient Twilight and Twang

The ambience of Country – not panorama or wafts of meadowgrass – but synth and pedal steel with brooding and tolling bells as well as peaceful clouds drifting overhead just before the fuzz. Ambient music, that is, but more fun to tease it out as above, the Country-esque not a dominant force but evocatively present because there is much other, as the folk of closer Sundowner, though the cowboy guitar does come along in the end. I’ll admit I have to listen again as I have been soothed over the past forty minutes by its charm when doing something other than lying in its musical fields. Genuine bliss and blossom lassoed in loops and synthesis. Consider Pink Floyd farming in Glen Campbell’s pastures and open plains.  

Listen and get it here.