Post Description

Something of a veteran, Terry Lee Hale is not a name often dropped at Americana themed parties. More's the pity as this Texan born, Paris based songwriter has released one of the better albums of the year. Hale has a lengthy track record dating back to his debut on a Sub Pop sampler, Sub Pop 200 where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Nirvana, tad, Soundgarden, Green River, Mudhoney and The Walkabouts. The latter's Chris Eckman has been a constant in Hale's career (while Glen Slater, Walkabouts keyboard player appears on The Long Draw) and both have long been associated with Glitterhouse, one of those labels that everyone should have at least several of their releases in their collection.

The Long Draw, Hale's 12th release, was recorded in Paris and is a lean, raw boned collection of tales like pages torn from a diary with locations all recorded in the liner notes. Recorded live in the studio Hale is joined by drummer Frantxoa Errecarret on all the songs with bass and keyboard duties shared amongst several other participants. There's a fine loose limbed feel to the songs but it's his percussive guitar style and half spoken vocals that dominate with whispers of J. J. Cale or Lou Reed in his delivery.
While What she Wrote is taken at a sprightly pace with some fine pedal steel playing from Jon Hyde and Three Long Days clatters along with scrubbed guitar sounding almost like a Calexico song the majority of the songs are tense, punchy, defiant almost. The title song burns with indignation as Hale sets it in the shadow of a defunct motor assembly plant in Michigan. Black Forest Phone Call tells of the suicide of a friend and compares the art of living to surviving a war.

There's a poignancy to the bittersweet memories recalled by a dishevelled drifter as he revisits his abandoned home in The Sad Ballad of Muley Graves and here the band slows almost to a halt as if standing before each artefact trying to remember, a great performance. Hale cuts loose on the almost frivolous L.A. 9th & Grand, a parade of Runyonesque characters with a pumping organ and Basement Tape like leeriness.

The best is kept to the last as Hale and Errecarret deliver the superb Goldmine which serves the album much in the same way as Dylan's Highlands served Time Out of Mind even sharing a starting point with Hale sitting in a café restaurant and pondering his life. It's an excellent end to a thought provoking album.

Tracklisting:
1 Long Draw
2 What She Wrote
3 Black Forest Phone Call
4 The Sad Ballad of Muley Graves
5 Three Days
6 The Central
7 L.A. 9th & Grand
8 Gold Mine

Extra Informatie:
Aantal Discs: 1xCD
Genre: Folk Rock
Format: MP3 @ 320kbit
Year of Release: 2014
Speelduur: 45 minuten
Cover: Front is in de RARs verwerkt