The course of true love never did run smooth.
When a relationship is going bad there are often things you have said and wish you hadn't, and things you didn't say but wish you had.
You can either move on from this or do what Micah P. Hinson does and run these might-have-beens over and over in the head. In Hinson's case it is not just in his head. He writes the words down and makes them into songs.
The reference to 'progress' in the title is ironic since the frequent condition he seems to be in is one of stasis, of being stuck.
Micah P.Hinson And The Gospel Of Progress is a reissue on a French record label of the Texan singer-songwriter's debut album first released on Sketchbook Records in 2004.
The thirteen songs (plus one bonus track) are a series of pained and plaintive laments. Lyrically they are minimalist and autobiographical to the point of being irritatingly self absorbed.
On Stand In My Way he hammers away on the line "It's not what you said it's just how you said it to me", while on Don't You, one of the best tracks, he sings in his broken baritone: There are things I said that don't mean a thing anyway". He repeats the phrase before pleading with increasing desperation: Don't you forget about me"
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You can easily imagine the songs as raw demos but the production by The Earlies gives them a lush respectability without compromising the unpolished quality.
With promises broken, patience lost and possibilities no longer endless, we leave our hero on The Day Texas Sank To The Bottom Of The Sea "up in these trees trying to hang myself with thoughts of you".
After hearing these bleak songs the notion that what doesn't kill you will make you stronger sounds like an empty platitude.
Micah P. Hinson's website
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