- Label: 'Think Like A Key Music'
- Genre: 'Indie'
- Release Date: '10.10.25.'- Catalogue No: 'TLAK1202'
Our Rating:
Astor Place is Edwards Rogers ninth solo album, produced by Don Fleming at Hobo Sound in Weehawken. The band are Steve Shelley, Tony Shanahan, Steve Bernstein, Claudia Chopek, Don Fleming, Joe McGinty, Eleanor Norton, Don Piper and Matt Sweeney. Edward was originally from Birmingham and has been resident in New York in recent years.
The album opens with Astor Place taking us on a trip full of secret trysts, strings swell and grow, Edward chases his dreams psychedelically re-purposing Chris Bell's sting arrangements to his own ends.
The Olde Church just describes a wedding day at an ancient church, plucked strings helping him wonder just how many events the old place witnessed, he doesn't mention them holding modern concerts in the space, chamber strings almost have echoes and resonance from being played in an old chapel.
Lies, Cries And Alibi's may be about an old lover and all the things said and done, but easily this could be a commentary on modern political betrayals, the glammed-up guitar freakout makes me want to hear it doubled in length.
Magical Drum is sparse indie Psyche song of love lust and memories of what might have been, with more of that sizzling guitar. Romeo has a heavier feel like the band are letting rip, while Edward talk sings about what that Romeo got up too, or what the scandal hungry mass media made of what they were up too, retracting half of it the next day, while trying to re-live every note of the corking guitar freak out, bucking like a bronco.
Diamonds Hidden In The Pearls is I guess better than that old album title where they are hidden in the mouth of a corpse, sparse guitars for tense memories of nightmares of poverty and destruction.
I Walk Behind Your Shadow is string led sparse reflections, gentle brass intrusions, lovers parting at the end of a passionate affair.
Tears In Martini western guitars and shuffling drums have left you blubbing into that last drink, swirling an olive full of bitter regret, all those meaningless alibis catching up with you.
15 Eldon Road reflections about his childhood home in Birmingham, another mighty guitar explosion, playing with tin soldiers and rotten socks, listening to Tommy Steele, or was he trying to tap dance like him. The album closes with On The Other Side Of The Rainbow you've seen it all and are hoping a fresh start, might move things beyond downbeat reflections, yet the piano and trumpets keep you grounded in your memories of what might have been better days.
Find out more at https://www.thinklikeakey.com/release/518064-edward-rogers-astor-place https://edwardrogers.bandcamp.com/album/astor-place https://www.facebook.com/edward.rogers
