Tattoo artist Greg Laraign\u00e9, who records under his last name, is a troubadour with a lengthy history in the area of punk rock. However, he grew up on Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash and Tom Petty, and their influence is certainly present on this sophomore studio album that took ten years to make. <\/p>\n
Laraign\u00e9 starts the listen with the warm electric guitar and smooth vocals of the title track, where his introspective singing is complemented by Chris Lyttle’s fluid drumming. \u201cAre Dogs Holing Up To Die\u201d follows, and welcomes Darreck Anderson’s emotive pedal steel and Eamon McGrath’s well timed keys to the gentle, dreamy delivery. <\/p>\n
In the middle, \u201cTwenty Years\u201d picks up the pace a bit with a melodic folk-rocker that builds into a louder, punk-influenced album highlight, while \u201cKing Of Denmark\u201d recruits Casey Lynn on backup vocals for the scrappy Americana nods that wouldn’t be out of place on a mixtape with early Frank Turner. <\/p>\n
The final three tracks are just as excellent, and include the slow burning and lush beauty of \u201cThirty-Nine\u201d, as well as the hazy, sonically radiant nature of \u201cSkate Shoes.\u201d \u201cFather And Son\u201d exits the listen and showcases Paul Ramirez’s drumming and Chris Cresswell’s (The Flatliners, Hot Water Music) backup vocals on the powerful finish that lyrically mentions Minor Threat and Bad Religion, and embraces a rugged yet dense delivery. <\/p>\n
It isn’t hard to think of similar punk-spirited artists like Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry or Jon Snodgrass when listening to these seven tracks, but you’ll also notice traces of Son Volt or Steve Earle in Laraign\u00e9’s country\/folk\/Americana vision that’s very, very well executed.<\/p>\n
If you’re a packaging nerd like myself, the record comes with stickers, a poster, a download code, and full lyric sheet. Even better that it’s on smokey clear vinyl, too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":34651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10796],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-46506","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-laraigne","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46506","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\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46506"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}