The lack of information accompanying this release intrigues me. The only way of satisfying my curiosity is playing it... Oh. 'Be a Man' makes stabs at the epic, but is simply too tame and too controlled, not to mention to thoroughly uninspired and uninspiring to pull it off. It kinda sounds like the Eagles. I had hoped that this less than promising start might be intended to wrong-foot the listener, but no. Instead, it sets the tone and template for the rest of the album, which plods along in a mellowed-down laid back country-tinged furrow.
Mr Rutledge's world may be full of tough-lovin', hard liquor drinkin' wandein' gamblin' heartbreakers, but in the main, you wonder how tough these guys - including the first-person 'narrator' character really are. I'm just not feeling it,. and there's a discernible lack of, well, balls, about 'The Early Widows'. There are some interesting moments: 'Islands' is downbeat, sparse and brooding, but elsewhere, 'Heart of a River' is a big, brassy rocked-up affair with brassy backing vocals that grate rather, and 'I Have Not Seen the Light' is a teeth-grittingly cliche slide-guitar slouchalong of heartbreak by numbers. It's pretty horrible, but for the most part, 'The Early Widows' is simply forgettable.
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'Turn Around' features some atrociously incongruous lyrics: 'Everyone's raging, everyone's roaring / everyone's raining, everyone's pouring.' Really, snoring would have been more appropriate, and by the third verse I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Really, I can only take so much drab Americana. I might have said 'for fans of the Eagles' but Eagles fans should probably stick with them and give this a miss, as there really isn't all that much to recommend it.
http://www.myspace.com/justinrutledge
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