Austin based Eric Hisaw has been around a while but this new album is the first time I've come across him.
These thirteen songs that are stories in miniature really impress; he's got a knack for setting a scene in a few words and for writing about what he sees around him - about small town life out in the sticks of West Texas where nights by the river with cheap booze and the car stereo blaring are as exciting as it gets. In 'Cheap Living' he really gets to grips with the ambivalence experienced growing up in such a place: "and you're feeling a little claustrophobia/Where everyone knows your name/How are you going to fare without/The ones who care about/What Happens to you".
These observational songs are married to a mood generally set by the title song ("Something's not right with my heart again/Something's not right with my head again...../And that's just the nature of the blues, my friend"). The music is country and blues-tinged rock, illuminated throughout by Eric Hisaw's exceptionally accomplished guitar playing. He never cuts loose on this record and could never be accused of being showy, but throughout 'Nature of the Blues' his understated playing is over and again the highlight of each song, though Jud Newcombe's resonator guitar on 'Hotel Grand' certainly gives him a run for his money.
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There is some variation in mood, from the downbeat 'Carnival' (which put me vaguely in mind of Richmond Fontaine) to the almost jaunty 'Jake', a story of a drifting troubadour followed in the life almost inevitably by the son he abandoned. In fact there's almost everything here to make a really killer album; what is missing, sadly, is a big tune or the hooks that would really get us singing along; they're almost there and maybe sometimes they are there but Eric's voice isn't quite bright enough, or rich enough, to really hit home and I'm left with the feeling that he could become better known through other people singing his songs - or that just hearing one of these songs at a time on the radio or the shuffle would enhance their impact. Well worth checking out, though and I'd expect his guitar playing alone would make it a bit of atreat to see him live.
John (Bisciuts and Gravy) Davy www.nessmp3.com/music/biscuitsandgravy
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