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George Washington once said,
"It's better to offer no excuse than a bad one." Here are three
artists that pass Honest George's criterion: they admit it's hard to grow up
decent and good—confessionals in the truest sense of owning one's personal
sins. Four stars for each of these superb musicians….
The toughest release comes from Matt Butler, whose Reckless Son (NoiseTrade)
is the title track and the album's theme. An unabashed post-addiction album, Reckless Sons testifies to the old idea
that some people need to scrap bottom before they come up for air. Butler, New
York-bred and based, once fronted a post-punk band and engaged in much of the
despair associated with punk's hardest edges: drug addiction, alcoholism, homelessness,
vagrancy…. Butler is clean these days and has left punk for that
folk/country/rock hybrid called "Americana," but he's not ashamed to
sing about his substance abuse , lost faith, disappointment, regret, and hurt.
In one of the album's most gut-wrenching songs, "Good Friday," Butler sings of drifting to the street beneath his mother's
apartment, longing to enter, but leaving because he knew he wasn't going to get
sober. Butler's voice—which is often a sweet high tenor–contains just the right
touch of pained punk strain. It makes a fine companion song to the album's
opening track, the ironically titled "Home For Good," a song in which
Butler uses "my mother's St. Christopher medal hanging 'round my
neck" as the elusive dream of an easily derailed homeward redemption: "I
meant it every time I said I was coming home for good." Numerous songs
speak to the crooked path search for manhood. The central character in
"Young Man's Prison" finds himself behind bars at age 17–a bad boy
out of control who confuses heedlessness with cries for help. The title track
imagines "what it's like to be the father of a reckless son." One of
the most admirable traits of Butler's album is a lack of self-pity. The
characters in the songs–and Butler admits most are based on him–can't really
explain their actions hence (to invoke George Washington), they offer no
excuses. This is a very powerful album; don't be scared off by its brutal
honesty. The studio band is tight, the melodies are memorable, and Butler's
range is impressive. He can be smooth and tender, but he can also bust it in
the high and strong range to soar above the mix. He's sometimes compared to
Jason Isbell (Drive-By Truckers)—apt, but toss in a little of the
kicked-in-the-teeth resiliency of Slaid Cleaves.
★★★★
Here's a Millennial story for you:
A young man from Georgia does everything he's supposed to do: straight A's, law
school, a practice with lots of toys and dough, followed by an equally
successful corporate career. But he's neither happy nor fulfilled, so he
decides to stop acting to a script written by others, walks away, and goes out
on the road as a rock musician. That young man is Marshall Seese, Jr. who calls
himself The Tin Man because of a
line in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: "Once
I had brains, and heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much rather
have a heart." His EP, Too Many Lines is good stuff—really
good stuff. Seese knows how to build a good rock song: start small, let it
percolate, rise to a big bridge, go bigger, and then back off. His delightfully
ambiguous lead song, "Already Gone" deserves lots of airplay. Is it the
ultimate break up song, or one that accepts that loving is hard? Could go
either way! "I want to love you like I'm already gone—sweet memory/I want
to love you like it's already over/Nothing to lose—but you." I admired how
Seese adjusts his voice to the moods demanded by each song. If he is stepping
out in "Already Gone," he's also the guy with a fragile catch in his
voice pleading "Please Don't Let Me Go," and the one who gets grungy
and refuses to take his walking papers in "Don't Want to Be Free."
His EP is just seven songs, two of which are alternate versions of the same
song, but it has lots of moods. He's a rocker at heart, but check out the
Appalachian gospel opening to the title track. He's also the guy who goes folky
and tender on "I Know I." Hey Tin Man—keep following your heart.
★★★★
Tossing Copper is the stage name of singer/songwriter Jake Scott. His Silhouettes and Sand LP
is an extension of an earlier EP and a signal he's ready for prime time. Scott's
voice has the soothing qualities of someone like Bryan Adams, but the songs are
heartfelt, not processed. He sets the mood early on by opening with "The
Man I Want to Be." It's a hand clapper that's bouncy and danceable, but
also contains a note of fragile uncertainty: "When I write the last words
of this story/Will I be the man I want to be?" This is a thoughtful album that
contains tender songs such as the acoustic country "Hello Darling,"
but it's mainly Scott's admission that he doesn't have things figured out. He
grew up in a religious family, but it didn't take and that caused him deep
anguish. Check out "Edge of Eden," a deeply emotive apology letter to
his mother. Relationship woes emerge on "The Mason," in which he must
confront the reality that the woman of his dreams was little more than an
imaginary wall that easily crumbled. The title song, an emotional folk song
supplemented with strings and harmonies, is etched with longing. His is another
searching for a fully realized identity album, but Scott gives us more than a
sad unburdening. "Ships of Cortez" is a hopeful little song with a
bluegrass vibe with a bit of full-throated joyful rave thrown in. Scott also
redirects some of his darker thoughts. "American Man" is a quiet, but
devastating take down of chasing material dreams: "Green ties pulled tight
like nooses/Hand shakes I'm taken in/Dreams die in time I lose it/Farewell my
innocence/My worth is measured in signs/Next to numbers on a line…."
Scott's voice is calm, yet somehow the song is more poignant than a didactic
protest song or an invective-filled punk attack on the system. Scott has
learned at least one life lesson well: it pays to be honest about what you
think and feel.
★★★★
Rob Weir
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