Written
by Montey Wright, posted by blog admin
It
isn’t enough to cop a pose and hope it sticks. It won’t. Devotees of Americana
music will eventually hear through the pretense and peg you for the dilettante
you are. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the moniker singers/songwriters/musicians
Phil Barry and Sarah Fuerst adopted for their collaboration, are as real as it
gets, there’s no posing here. Their self-titled first release garnered praise
from every quarter as a special creative bond exists between Barry and Fuest
anyone can hear if they bother listening. Their complete command of the
necessary musical lexicon never strikes a false note and, instead, incorporates
atypical sounds into the duo’s traditional approach. Mellotron and a generous
amount of organ fill the song with colors quite uncommon to the style and the
added atmospherics they bring to the table enhance, rather than detract, from
the musical enterprise.
The
moments of overall understatement on the album are memorable for a number of
reasons. “Let’s Be Friends” has a low-key heartbroken glow surrounding every
vocal and instrumental line, but the mood generated by those two components
working together so well is what the track ultimately relies on for its
success. Barry and Fuerst rarely sing in outright lockstep and we, as
listeners, are better for the fact/ The less than seamless mesh of their singing
sounds like there is some point-counterpoint between their voiced while they
show off plenty of range to fill the song’s emotional vistas. “Miss Me” sounds
someone’s studied their classic 60’s-70’s country and nail the style. There are
stinging steel guitar licks rising out of the mix and bringing some welcome vibrancy
to what might otherwise sound like a paint by numbers number. “Can’t Be Trusted”
is definitely one of the album’s best writing shots as Phil Barry seems to totally
relish an opportunity for embodying a much darker character than we’ve thus far
encountered during the album.
“Year
of the Monkey” is another extraordinarily sturdy track in the Americana vein
that doesn’t fail to bulge at those boundaries a little without ever
transforming into something else entirely. It’s one of the album’s strongest
lyrical numbers and, for anyone paying attention, it must become increasingly
clear that the words are, perhaps, an underrated aspect of their presentation. “Sweetest
Baby” is another of the album’s more entertaining moments thanks to its liberal
use of traditional tropes and the sheer charisma of their joint delivery. It
ambles with a good natured gait for the entirety of the song and marks one of
the more unabashedly likeable songs on the album. There is a discernible
undercurrent, even here, but the beauty of this track is how it can be enjoyed
in more than a few ways. They will definitely turn some heads with a delicately
wrought take on Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 classic “I’m on Fire”. The song has
been covered before, but Thunderbolt and Lightfoot bring a simmering delicacy
to their performance that distinguishes them from the pack. “Dearly Beloved”,
much like the earlier “Sweetest Baby”, sports a real undercurrent, it
nevertheless tosses some humor into a mix that can easily slip into heavy
handed despair. Its affectionate disposition is a welcome ending for Songs for
Mixed Company and constitutes a backwards wave as they are surely moving on to
future live shows and even better albums to come.
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