This is Franc Cinelli's latest album and thankfully this one (unlike his last album, I Have Not Yet Begun To Fight) hasn't been produced by anyone involved with Coldplay or Morrissey. It was apparently written whilst spending 12 months touring that record and it certainly has the feel of a confident band.
The album opens with Alchemy: no, not the Richard Lloyd classic, but instead a song that sounds like it could be an outtake from Steve Earle's Jerusalem album and it makes for a pretty cool start.
Travelling Alone has a cool, strummed guitar in the style of Virgin-era Kevin Coyne with cool lyrics about being on the road alone along with some great harmonica and percussion. Across The Slipstream goes all Fred Neil in its own gentle way as it draws you into the lyrics as they aren't playing anywhere near fast enough to create a slipstream.
Down & Down feels like it's a fine mist of drizzle rather than the downpour Franc sings about. It's gentle and cool and almost borders on Prefab Sprout-like territory. Blindsided is a slow piano led tune that is almost a torch song about a lost love that he wanted to sing Thunder Road to in the hope of keeping the romance alive. A cool sad song.
Breakers is a list song for all the things you promise you'll do for an ex while breaking up with them but almost all of which will never happen. It plays out over the sort of tune that Ryan Adams seems to toss off in his sleep. Animals is not the Pink Floyd song or the Jazz Butcher one but a gentle caress of a song with all sorts of stuff layered into it as the desperation in the lyric aimed at human behavior unfolds.
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Blue could almost be a stripped back John Denver or James Carr song until the vibraphone kicks in. It's well worth hearing. Driver, as the title suggests, is a cool driving blues song with a sort of down home Dixie Chicken-era Little Feat shuffle to it.
Leave Her Running closes the album with a slow and meandering piece of bayou-style picking as the lyrics ride the rails. It's a damn good plea for a way back home and closes a very good album that will grow on you with each listen.
Find out more at Franc Cinelli online
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