Artiste: Eric Church
Album: Evangeline vs the Machine
Rating: *****
Eric Church has taught the world to nurse heartaches with swagger and hard-rockin’ bar-room numbers. The man who has turned country music on its head — listen to his take of Snoop Dogg’s Gin & Juice — dives into beautiful arrangements by celebrating his expressive baritone that lashes out on a somebody-done-somebody-wrong world.
Evangeline vs the Machine is only eight tracks long, significantly brief compared with its predecessor, Heart & Soul, but not without its share of experimentation, like a French horn over electric guitar. Daring? Hell ya, right from get-go. The march of time gets captured on the opening track Hands of Time, with its church organ and memorable riff, allowing him to rip: Bloody Mary’s and aspirin will give a hangover one hell of a fight/ But my remedy for handling the hands of time.
Straddling the worlds of country and pop, cowboy boots on the feet, whisky-soaked voice in place, he makes the listener feel as if he is knocking back drinks in Nashville. He introduces Evangeline, like the Rolling Stones relied on the French horn in You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Church makes the ballad stand out: Still the man I was/ Just a little more grey/ A little more stained/ A little less stained from a buzz/ Still chasing a song.
Lightning strikes in the equally gorgeous Storm in Their Blood, complete with weeping strings. He addresses his anger: Most men seek love and peace/ But some are born with a storm in their blood.
Temperatures subside on Johnny, and his take on the tale of the devil trying to win a young man’s soul reminds one of The Devil Went Down to Georgia in 1979. In Church’s hand, it’s a protest against gun violence: Johnny, ole Johnny, where did you go/ The devil’s broke out of Georgia/ And he’s feasting on our soul.
The 48-year-old singer appears vulnerable, innovative and agreeable, pulling the same epic punches he has done on earlier albums. Evangeline vs the Machine is an album with a heart.
Artiste: Coco Jones
Album: Why Not More?
Rating: ****
The Disney Channel star should have chosen music over acting. Her debut full-length album, Why Not More?, proves it. Her voice has already made an impact with singles like Here We Go (Uh Oh) and ICU. The new album simply stacks her up next to Brandy and Toni Braxton.
The 17 tracks drive home a simple point: She believes in her music, her vision of what makes a good album and her understanding of R&B’s rich history, captured fantastically on the drowsy number Taste (she interpolates Britney Spears’s classic number, Toxic) and AEOMG that captures the vibe of Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much.
Rapper-producer Timbaland’s influence is all over the album, be it the unforgiving Hit You Where It Hurts (Maybe I double the trouble and humble you) or frustrated-in-love Keep It Quiet (Don’t make me give up on you, giving into temptations). Silky synths take over Forever Don’t Hit Like Before (Bottle of wine, cheap temptations).
As her first full-fledged album, her message is clear — she is here to deliver more music. Her voice is rich, and the music is wide-ranging. At the same time, she signals that there are depths to be covered.
Artiste: Suzanne Vega
Album: Flying with Angels
Rating: ***
Suzanne Vega finds inspiration in Bob Dylan’s I Want You for her song Chambermaid: I’m the great man’s chambermaid/ I’ve seen where his hallowed head is laid/ I revere the places he has stayed/ And clean crumbs from his typewriter. Always measured in her words, Vega emerged as a Greenwich Village folkie in the 1980s when it wasn’t fashionable to be in a confessional mode. It didn’t stop her from giving us the cool observations of a coffee drinker in the single Tom’s Diner or lending her voice to an abused boy in her 1987 hit, Luka.
In her first album in almost 10 years, you expect the same level of artistic mastery, but this time she’s far more direct, perhaps more so because of the political turbulence in the US. On Speakers’ Corner, she is accompanied by a slide guitar as she sings: The doomsday prophet/ Whose words have all come true/ The naysaying soothsayer/ So cynical and blue.
On The Last Train from Mariupol, the 65-year-old laments the times we are living in: God himself was on the last train/ Frightened by all he was seeing. Vega is at her cryptic best on Witch, a song about a man who has a terrifying encounter with another woman while he is out with his wife. A personal winner is Galway, about the missed opportunity for an Irish love affair: I’ve seen my future and you aren’t in it/ But I’ll let you know if it changes somehow.
The problem is we want the Suzanne Vega of the 1980s but the singer has switched to a call-to-action mode. Yet, the album makes your mind wander into lands where freedom has an easy definition.