I would love nothing more than to sit here in my office at the
\nPierce Memorial Archives and declare Gene Land to be the next big
\nthing in country music.<\/p>\n
After all, this is a genre which is pretty much still searching
\nfor an all-out leader since Garth Brooks announced he’s hanging it
\nup – maybe. (That all depends on what day of the week it is, and if
\nJupiter is in the shadow of Mars.) The problem is that no one has
\ncome forth to be the next Brooks, and anyone who’s come close has
\ndone so by crossing over to the pop market. Dixie Chicks? Possibly,
\nbut they’re not there yet. Faith Hill? Some view her as a sell-out.
\nSame goes for Shania Twain.<\/p>\n
Yes, I’d love to clear the confusion up and say that Land is
\nBrooks’s obvious successor… but I can’t. Not after listening to
\nStrangers & Angels<\/i> and hearing a pretty much generic
\ncollection of cookie-cutter country with more than a touch of twang
\nfrom the Plains states.<\/p>\n
You can tell that there is a lot of indecision in regards to
\nthis project in the first song, “Lost In A Border Town” – though
\nthis might be the fault of guitarist\/bassist\/producer Kevin Jones.
\nJust as Land launches into his vocal, you hear a tasty guitar lick
\n– immediately followed by a mandolin solo. Hey, Kevin, pick one or
\nthe other, and
\ncommit<\/i> to it. All this quick-change instrumentation does is
\nconfuse the listener, who (at least in this stage of the disc) is
\nmore interested in discovering who Land is. Save the fancy show-off
\nstuff for later, and use it in moderation.<\/p>\n
I don’t want the reader to think that
\nStrangers & Angels<\/i> is without merit. Two tracks do
\nshine, both of them in their own unique styles. “The One I Waited
\nFor” sounds like it could be a crossover hit (though it feels too
\nshort at 2:30), while “I Hate It When That Happens” has all the
\nprerequisite country twang and is a lot of fun to listen to.<\/p>\n
If only there were more moments that made this disc fun. The
\ntitle track has its moments, to be sure, but the bulk of the tracks
\nare watered-down country numbers that don’t have the musical punch
\nor confidence to do much. Songs like “Sail Away Together,”
\n“Standing On The Edge Of Love” and “Tell You I Love You” don’t
\nconnect with the listener in the way that they could have. Part of
\nthis is that Land’s voice doesn’t always seem to be strong enough
\nto carry the music, though he occasionally does surprise.<\/p>\n
\nStrangers & Angels<\/i> is not a bad disc by any means, but
\nit’s not the genre’s savior that it seems to so desperately need at
\nthis stage in the game. All Land can do is load up his saddle into
\nhis Dodge Dakota and drive off into the sunset to try again another
\nday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6563],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-37009","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-gene-land","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37009","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=37009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37009"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37009"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}