Singer-songwriter roots-rock is ultimately about two things \u2013 craftsmanship and passion. It\u2019s got to be more than just guitars and voices; the songs have to be grounded and insightful and have genuine emotional resonance to work.\u00a0 And the artist has to be completely invested in his or her songs; it\u2019s a genre where every note and every word has to ring true or the whole structure just collapses in on itself.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a genre in which tremendously talented disciples like Chris Cubeta, Michael McDermott and Mark McKay all gather around the man with the center seat, Mr. Bruce Springsteen.\u00a0 After several listens to Esperanza<\/i>, I would add to that notable crowd of admirers Mr. Brian Lindsay of Rochester, New York.\u00a0 This album is the sound of a man who listened to \u201cThunder Road\u201d and said to himself, \u201cThat\u2019s what I want to do.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Lindsay\u2019s sophomore solo release is a striking piece of work — not necessarily because it\u2019s the most original songwriting I\u2019ve ever heard (it isn\u2019t), but because Lindsay consistently elevates these songs above their station with his passionate delivery and spot-on arrangements.\u00a0 Acting as his own producer, with occasional help from collaborators Tony Gross (guitar) and Alan Whitney (guitar\/vocals), Lindsay knows exactly what he wants from each of these songs and wrings every ounce of drama and passion out of each that they\u2019re capable of delivering.<\/p>\n
Thundering opener \u201cLay Your Burden Down\u201d delivers conspicuous Springsteenisms from the melodramatic build of the song to lyrics like the title\/chorus and \u201cLife can be a fragile as a house of cards,\u201d but delivers nonetheless thanks to a compelling arrangement and performance.\u00a0 \u201cKing Of The Mountain\u201d trades the steel guitar of \u201cBurden\u201d for mandolin, playing the lighter tones off some gritty electric guitar and drawing comparisons to John Hiatt\u2019s \u201cCry Love.\u201d\u00a0 Halfway through, Lindsay doubles the til-then deliberate beat and the song takes on a barroom-stomper edge that has me thinking Steve Earle.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s Get Together (Rejuvenation)\u201d adds horns and honky-tonk piano for a roadhouse romp through a time-honored Springsteen theme, a \u201cLeap Of Faith\u201d-style celebration of the powers of sexual healing. And \u201cSummerville\u201d delivers a genuine anthem, risking it all on the type of song where a wrong word can turn the whole effort sour, and coming out a winner.<\/p>\n
The darker, more country-tinged title track is another potent slice of melodrama that works as much because of Lindsay\u2019s totally committed delivery as the quality of the song itself.\u00a0 And while the ganged background vocals and harmonica are all Bruce, the fiddle and Lindsay\u2019s over-the-top passion delivering a song about riding bikes past the hundred-year-old ghosts of the Underground Railroad make me think of Garth Brooks.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrothers In Arms\u201d extends this country feel with more mandolin and fiddle supporting a gritty story-song with a Kris Kristofferson \/ Jackson Browne feel to it, based on a journal kept by Lindsay\u2019s great-grandfather during the Civil War.\u00a0 \u201cMy Lucky Day\u201d blurs the line between admiration and imitation with a song that adapts a favorite Springsteen theme — how people overcome adversity in small and simple ways that grant them some sense of redemption and future possibility \u2013 and gives it a title Springsteen used just last year.<\/p>\n
One of the most likable songs on this disc, the friendship anthem \u201cNew York City To The Bayou,\u201d suffers under the weight of its clich\u00e9-littered opening stanzas, but once you get past \u201cJackie caught a ride out of the Big Apple \/ To help a friend in the Big Easy,\u201d it does get steadily better.<\/p>\n
Esperanza<\/i> closes out with a pleasantly anthemic number about the \u201cLast Days Of Summer\u201d and finally the rather Dylan-and-The-Band \u201cThe Balance.\u201d \u00a0Like so many of these tracks, this pair feels familiar in ways both positive and negative.\u00a0 You can\u2019t really hope to win any points for originality using a phrase like \u201cthe circle of life,\u201d but it\u2019s all in the delivery, and Lindsay sings it like he means it.<\/p>\n
This album is in fact littered with phrases and themes familiar to any Springsteen fan — \u201cI won\u2019t let you down, my love grows stronger still\u201d \u201cLay your burden down\u201c \u201cLet\u2019s rendezvous beneath the town sign\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWrap your arms around me like you\u2019ll never let me go.\u201d\u00a0 But that\u2019s not necessarily a criticism \u2013 just a statement of fact, evidence that while these aren\u2019t heavyweight songs, they\u2019re welterweight, solid and respectable and imbued with the same sort of rough-hewn dignity and raw beauty that Springsteen often achieves.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Esperanza<\/i> is a passionate, committed, and innately likable blast of roots-rock that feels both familiar, and welcome at that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8553],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41932","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-brian-lindsay","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41932","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41932"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}