One should be careful when using the term “God” to refer to
\none’s self. They once called Clapton a God, but for good reason. He
\nwas arguably the best guitar player of his day. The self proclaimed
\nHod the God (a.k.a. Perry Hodder) is no Clapton, and he’s no God
\neither. He’s an English guy enamored with Bob Dylan and American
\nroots rock. His debut CD
\nThe Music Room<\/i> is a rather bland stew of roots-rock
\nclich\u00e9s that rarely lifts itself above an imitation of its
\nobvious influences — Dylan, Lou Reed and Tom Petty, among others.
\nHis voice is also remarkable like a young Dylan, which will prove
\nto further create the impression of a nascent Dylan wannabe.<\/p>\n
Hod’s style is middle of the road, mid-tempo ballads. The rhythm
\nand tempo of each song is almost identical, and before half the
\nalbum was over I was yearning for a different beat, a different
\ntone, or anything to give some distinction of one song over the
\nnext. Sadly, they all meld together into a plodding dirge.<\/p>\n
Lyrically, the melancholy themes that populate this album left
\nme a little flat. The litany of broken dreams and broken hearts
\nruns unceasingly through this disc, without ever really touching
\nany nerves. If one chooses to wade around in the shallows of
\ndepression, one must do so with certain degree of panache or risk
\nleaving the listener with feeling sulky and unfulfilled. If one
\nwishes to mope, one should do so in style a la The Cure or
\nMorrissey, where there was usually a thread of hopelessness and
\nbitter ennui that the lovesick, lifesick and generally forlorn
\ncould relate to. Hod doesn’t imbue his compositions with enough
\nangst to reveal the bitterness. He weaves a thread of limp
\ndepression into the lyrics which lacks any vitality or real pain.
\nAlso missing is any sense of humor or irony. Hod’s words are pretty
\nrun of the mill metaphors for the great emptiness he seems to want
\nto portray, but doesn’t have the knack of finding original ways of
\nexpressing.<\/p>\n
On a positive note, the production and the musicianship are both
\nquite good. Hod’s guitar work is good, and manages to lift up the
\none energetic track “Indian Queens,” which is reminiscent of Mark
\nKnopfler’s mid-’80s work.<\/p>\n
The world is full of sad songs and love songs. Way, way too many
\nof both in my opinion, and the ones that really touch anyone deeply
\nare a small minority of these overused genres. So, if you want to
\ncreate those kinds of songs, you need to reach a lot higher than
\nthis to grab my attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":27115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7182],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-38452","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hod-the-god","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38452","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\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38452"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}