With song titles like "Are We Really Through", "This Love Is Over" and "New York City's Killing Me", it's pretty obvious Ray LaMontagne's new album is not the shiny, happy, feel-good record of the summer. But it is still fantastic, heavy in country influences, slide guitar everywhere, banjo, harmonica and plenty of acoustics with his newly coined backing band, The Pariah Dogs.
Producing himself for the first time, LaMontagne and his band recorded this over two weeks at his Massachusetts home, and the live feel shines through. The Pariah Dogs are on full display in the fiery opener "Repo Man", with its shuffling groove and LaMontagne scalding a cheating lover asking "What makes you think I'm gonna take you back again?/I ain't your repo man". They break out the banjos for the mid-tempo "Old Before Your Time", while the album closer, "The Devil's In The Jukebox", is a honky tonk stomper, complete with harmonica and twangy electric and acoustic guitars.
However, the heart and soul of the album is contained within its five stunning ballads. LaMontagne's voice is already a national treasure and it is front and center on these tracks. He laments missing the country and getting out of the big city on the aptly titled "New York City's Killing Me" while slide guitars cry throughout the title cut.
It is a different type of lament that dominates the remaining three ballads. The subject matter of "Are We Really Through" and "This Love Is Over" is self explanatory by their titles alone. LaMontagne delivers a heartbreaking vocal performance on the former with just acoustic guitar and bass underneath him for the majority of the track. "Are We Really Through" also boasts the album's prettiest melody. The latter is another acoustic based track, but lovely orchestration is added to the somber talk of the end of a relationship.
"Like Rock & Roll And Radio" may not sound like a sad ballad, but LaMontagne compares the disconnect and drifting apart in a relationship to radio's abandonment of a music genre by asking "Are we strangers now/like rock & roll and the radio?" Depressing subject matter? Maybe, but you've just found a number of good options for that end of summer break-up song to drown your sorrows in. An essential 2010 release.
"God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise" was released in the U.S. August 17,2010 on RCA Records.
Official Website of Ray LaMontagne
Ray LaMontagne on MySpace Music
Purchase "God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise" from Amazon.com
Looking forward to attend one of Ray’s concerts because I’m always dying to see him in direct. I scream, love u Ray Lamontagne!
Posted by: Ray Lamontagne Tickets | November 11, 2010 at 06:06 AM