Justin Hulsey is a singer songwriter from Kansas City who has lived in Nashville since 2002. Although he is in the heartland of mainstream country music, his inclinations stray towards 'alternative' wing of the genre with Indie rock being as much of an influence as Grand Ole Opry icons.
Light Up The Road is a half-hour mini album of his own songs recorded in LA with a three piece backing band. Hulsey plays electric and acoustic guitar.
The tunes are melodic and strongly tied to the 'can't live with or without you' school of emotional trauma. "It takes just one love to ruin all the rest" he laments on One More Mistake and in the opening track (Me In Two) he is wrapped up in the "the madness of my memories" and torn between holding on or letting go.
Living with regrets and knowing when to leave the past behind are the feelings that fuel six of the eight tracks. His songs are like 'dear diary' conversations with himself set to music.
Some neat twangy guitar and pedal steel (played by Joe Garcia) are the dominant musical motifs which give the record a strong Whiskeytown feel although Hulsey's voice doesn't match the passion and intensity of Ryan Adams. The lack of a real edge results in his straying into the territory of limp soft-rock as on I Get The Feeling
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The two songs that take the listener beyond the complications of love are Black And White Worldand God Is A Ghost. The driving beat of the former is at odds with the downbeat mood of being plagued by self doubt and the feeling that he is an accident waiting to happen. The latter is the standout track on the album, in which he questions the things Uncle Sam does in pursuit of liberty carried by the effective metaphor of "freedom spreading like cancer" .
Hulsey is a talented song writer but more of a broader focus is what this album sorely needs to counteract his tendency towards 'woe is me' whinging. The thought on How You Never Knew that sometimes it is best just to say "fuck it and leave it behind" seems like sound advice to me.
Justin Hulsey online
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