Eddie Berman
This Past Storm
★★★
LA born and based Eddie Berman has started to break through
and now has three other releases in the can, but This Past Season was actually the first studio work he ever did,
though until now this 2012 recording had not seen the light of day. It's a
wonderful way to get to know this talented performer. He has drawn comparisons
to Tom Petty, a handle I'm not sure anyone should have to bear. It may be
because Berman is gruff voiced and has done some Tom Petty covers. If it helps,
Berman is also friends with Laura Marling and counts Dylan and Dave Von Ronk
among his influences.
The title track catches Berman in a Von Ronk mood—crisp
guitar but a voice that's somewhere between tuneful and a growl. The song is
about a self-exiled hobo on the road trying to figure out who he is and does a
better job exploring the landscape than his own psyche. "Sadie" is abit of pop-infused bluegrass; "Blood and Rust" a busted relationship
song paralleled to war: You chose
war/While I chose you/Ain't it cruel. A lot of Berman's songs on this album
have a down and out feel, and he sings them in a world weary and shopworn style,
even when he gets mysterious and fatalistic, as he does on "Oracle'sTune." Some may find the project lacking in musical color and Berman's
more recent recordings have far more polish and diversity, but it's always nice
to see how a performer gets to where he is now—an explosion of that hoary old
"out of nowhere" myth. The entire of This Past Storm is available on NoiseTrade, so check it out.
Rob Weir
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