Paste Magazine June/July 2010 : Page 83
THE LOVE LANGUAGE BLUE GIANT DIERKS BENTLEY NEW MUSI C THE LOVE LANGUAGE Libraries MERGE RELEASE DATE: JULY 13 Lo-fi quintet gets more ambi-tious but still wants to cuddle The second album from North Carolina’s The Love Language takes all of 25 seconds to get going, and it seems portentous. You ht even catch rself thinking, no, this lo-fi band has gone ga.” Indeed, d Lover Stuart amb has made a tremendous leap in terms of accessibility, scope and arrange-ment on Libraries: His gift for soaring tunes no longer pushes against scrappy guitar (as on the glorious “Sparxxx,” from the band’s 2009 debut) but rather it expands outward into Arcade Fiery terrain on “Pedals” and Ga-rageBand Springsteen with “Brittany’s Back.” McLamb makes records you can swoon to, and “This Blood Is Our Own” aims right at that effect, from his throaty, full-on vocals (which ascend precariously high without sounding precarious) to the piercing violins. If you find the drama a little much, McLamb devotes most of the album to cuddly guitar pop with occasional bells—which, as it turns out, is better to swoon to, anyway. MICHAELANGELO MATOS 7.2 BLUE GIANT Blue Giant VANGUARD RECORDS RELEASE DATE: JULY 13 Perfectly ragged Blue Giant's debut LP begins with a song about starting over, and that's just what these Pacific Northwesternerns have e. Comprised members from mattering of tland bands and hored by Viva e’s Kevin and ta Robinson, the new outfit's hungry, impulsive olio of folk, rock and alt-country tangles up the sounds of its members' pasts in a tumbleweed of strings, drawls and hollers. On the album's more provincial moments, like the wistful “Target Heart,” soft whispers adorn raggedy acoustics like flecks of sunlight on a dusty barn floor; elsewhere, “Blue Sunshine” stomps and bucks its way through a holy mess of rowdy chords and harmonicas, and the equally fervent “Go On” presses forth with a militant vigor. It's a turmoil of glorious noise. GRAY CHAPMAN 8.5 JUNE | JULY 2010 83 ALBUM 1 2 DIERKS BENTLEY Up On The Ridg CAPITOL RECORDS NASHVIL RELEASE DATE: JUNE YEE-HAW Put away your cynicism about rolodex records—rarely do albums this star-studded sound quite so organic. Up on the Ridge comprises ambitious covers executed with modesty and respect, magnanimous co-writes and a loving attention to sonic detail; a true celebra-tion of the state of modern country. A smoldering cover of Dylan’s “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” features gorgeous fiddle and mandolin interplay, while the wistful “Draw Me A Map” ranks among Bentley’s most poignant ballads, with its aching lead vocal performance; a chart-topper like this guy integrating as deep and disparate a group of performers as Kris Kristofferson, Alison Krauss, Miranda Lambert and Vince Gill is the icing on this home-made cake. (For the rockists, it's the equivalent of The Fray doing a deep blues record with Eric Clapton, Riv-ers Cuomo, B.B. King and Thom Yorke.) Bentley’s creative vision and foresight is rewarded with the fearless execution of this wieldy undertaking. JEFF LEVEN HELL NAW Dierks Bentley has never made the al-bum his voice deserves. His deep drawl is both robust and laidback, without the painted-on twang of so many big-hat country acts, and it sounds best when he can blur the line between rock and country. So his decision to make a blue-grass-themed album of mostly covers is a little puzzling. Trading his electric guitar for banjos, mandolins, andfiddles, Up On The Ridge foregoes his usual bravado for downhome earnestness. He never sounds especially persuasive or invested, whether he’s seducing a woman on the title track, fêting a civil rights leader on U2’s “Pride (In The Name of Love),” or retracing Dylan’s footsteps on the deserter’s yarn “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power).” Even Kris Kristofferson can’t enliven the drinking ode “Bottle to the Bottom,” and if you’re going to get Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert together in the studio, you gotta do better than a wan take on Verlon Thompson’s vice ode “Bad Angel.” STEPHEN M. DEUSNER OPINIONS DISCHORD !Dierks Bentley photo by Danny Clinch
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