Folk music was once a form of protest. In the late '60s, it was the folk artists that lit the torches against America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Singer/songwriter Tim Bowen (http://www.fallingcow.org) brings it all back with his own brand of politically and socially conscious electric folk.
From the first track, "Baghdad Is Black & Blue," Bowen makes his point known. This anti-war cut mixes dreamy textures and a pensive flute with violent samples of gunfire. It's an emotionally powerful song, one that lingers in your memory long after hearing it.
Like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Bowen is not blessed with a golden voice; you'll find no pretty-boy crooning here, the squeaky-clean falsettos that clogs commercial radio these days. Bowen's vocals ache with experience and age; it's dusty and brown, the only kind of voice you really want to hear with words and music such as this.
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On the child-abuse narrative "Just a Little Boy," Bowen delivers a more aggressive guitar edge, definitely recalling Young here. The rest of the tracks, for the most part, mirror Dylan's vintage work, free from studio polish yet packed with spikes in the lyrics like on "American Refugee," inspired by the U.S. government's screw-up of the Hurricane Katrina situation.
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