When one thinks of Stone Temple Pilots, \u201ccountry\u201d is not a genre that comes to mind, although a listen to some of their work from 1999\u2019s No. 4 <\/i>and forward found that influence starting to creep in. But for his first solo album, STP bassist Robert De Leo has gone full country, sometimes with elements of rock, but most often feeling like playing with friends on a porch or bunkhouse on a hazy afternoon. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the polar opposite of STP, and as such fans of that band may find it hard to adjust, but country-rock fans or those who feel close to reflective singer\/songwriter confessionals will be drawn immediately to the warm textures and lightly meditative lyrics on love and sorrow and the emotions that bind us. De Leo is generally not a singer and so keeps to the acoustic guitar and bass here, leaving the singing to guests like Pete Shoulder, Tim Bluhm, Jimmy Gnecco and Kara Britz (who each get two songs) and Johnni Irion. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no new ground broken, but there doesn\u2019t need to be on an album like this; you could put it on in your truck on a September afternoon driving through pastures or cornfields, or a windswept gray morning on a Carolina beach, and it will transport you. Whether you have been fighting with the person you love most (\u201cLove Is Not Made Of Gold\u201d), wishing you could start over (\u201cAnew\u201d) or looking back on mistakes made (\u201cLessons Learned\u201d), there\u2019s a song or two here that will resonate with you.<\/p>\n
Twice De Leo offers a nod to his other life in STP; first on \u201cWhat Will Be,\u201d a slow, spacy psychedelic folk tune with Gnecco sounding slightly like Scott Weiland; with some muscle, this song could have fit on Shangri-La Dee Da<\/i>, and it\u2019s not too bad, if a bit out of place after the first six songs. \u201cWhat\u2019ll I Do\u201d is a similar but less effective approach in this vein, as is the blissful fadeout \u201cIs This Goodbye,\u201d which De Leo sings himself for two minutes before allowing for a three-minute string quartet (with what sounds like a fiddle) to close out the scene, like a hero in the movie walking wounded but alive toward the horizon as the credits roll.<\/p>\n
The album sounds like something De Leo needed to make as a person, not as an artist making a statement or as a \u201clook what I can do outside of my band\u201d calling card. This means the songs weren\u2019t built for commercial purposes and, as such, there really aren\u2019t many hooks or melodies that will stick with you when the record is done. What will stick is the mood of it all; Lessons Learned <\/i>is genuine, unassuming and enveloping, an album that is not comfortable per se but can bring you reassurance. It\u2019s as far from STP as one can get, and it\u2019s worth checking out when you\u2019re ready for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":34621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10789],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46473","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-robert-de-leo","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46473","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46473"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}