The spirit of country-rockers like The Eagles isn’t dead. If
\ngroups like The Bottle Rockets haven’t given your memory a kick,
\ngroups like Big In Iowa should pick you up and give you a good
\nshake. Their second disc,
\nTwisted<\/i>, shows that Bob Burns and crew have learned their
\nlessons well – even though the formula gets a little thin by the
\nend of the disc.<\/p>\n
Don’t think for a second that Big In Iowa has lifted the
\ntablature from the early Eagles albums and copied them
\nnote-for-note; if anything, the group – lead vocalist\/rhythm
\nguitarist Burns, lead guitarist\/vocalist Rick House, bassist Ken
\nGlidewell, organist\/vocalist Mike McGuire and drummer\/vocalist Jeff
\nWilson – inject enough of their own style into the mix that you’ll
\nknow you’re listening to something unique yet familiar. It’s a fine
\nbalance, but one the band pulls off for the most part.<\/p>\n
\nTwisted<\/i> warmly embraces its rock roots as well. Tracks like
\n“Is This Love?” and “Southbound Train” hit the gas full throttle
\nand refuse to let the listener come up for air. “Is This Love?” is
\nespecially impressive, and is a definite highlight of this
\nalbum.<\/p>\n
The band’s Midwest roots shine through on tracks like “Rae Jean”
\nand “Justine (The Acid Queen)”, the latter track daring to throw a
\nlittle humor into the mix as well. It’s hard to listen to tracks
\nlike these and not think of Little Feat, especially with Burns’s
\nvocal delivery sounding not unlike the late Lowell George. But
\nBurns and the band make sure to put their own stamp on the
\nmaterial, which makes these tracks all the more special.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the songwriting doesn’t seem to be able to hold
\nout the promise for the bulk of
\nTwisted<\/i>. Cuts like “I Know It’s Wrong,” “My Pillow” and
\n“Nobody’s Fool” just aren’t of the same ilk as the first half of
\nthe disc, and what should have been a blazing finish for
\nTwisted<\/i> instead kind of meanders to a crawl. That’s a shame,
\nbecause Big In Iowa proved early and often on this disc that they
\nhad the power to write good songs and the musical chops to back
\nthem up. But if the song isn’t strong, solid performances don’t
\neven come into the picture.<\/p>\n
Big In Iowa recently released their latest disc
\nBangin’ ‘n’ Knockin’<\/i>; we’ll eventually get to that disc here
\nas well. Until then,
\nTwisted<\/i> is a nice introduction to this band as well as a
\nreminder of the forefathers of this generation – but it’s more of a
\ndisc that promises greater things to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6264],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36501","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-big-in-iowa","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36501"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36501"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}