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Review: 'LUCKY BONES'
'TOGETHER WE ARE ALL ALONE'   

-  Label: 'LUCKY BONES PROMOTIONS'
-  Genre: 'Alt/Country' -  Release Date: '21st February 2011'

Our Rating:
LUCKY BONES frontman Eamonn O’Connor has been knocking on acceptance’s door for some time now. Undertaking his own version of Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour in Europe and the States for the past few years, he lost some ground thanks to a fruitless period signed to Warner Brothers subsidiary London Records, but an acclaimed self-released 2008 EP bought him a fair bit of kudos in his native Ireland. As a result, it’s probably not too wide of the mark to describe his new album ‘Together We Are All Alone’ as highly anticipated.

Grizzled troubadours reporting on the knocks they take on life’s increasingly precarious highways are ten a penny these days, yet O’Connor stakes a claim to something enduring here. Recorded in a small town called Bastrop outside of Austin, Texas with producer Stephen Ceresia, the songs are of the expected Roots-related persuasion, but O’Connor’s vivid story-telling skills and the shape-shifting moods and tempos ensure you never get too complacent as the record unfolds.

At times, the album’s Texan incubation sounds all too tangible. A song of resignation and coming to terms, the plaintive title track has a shade or two of Texan troubadours Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, while the hard-living narrative ‘Stand So Tall’ (“baby’s life is like a car crash, a Mercedes hits a tenement wall”) is the kind of thing the younger, more impetuous Steve Earle might have pulled off.

Elsewhere, O’Connor’s influences are clearly drawn from sources much closer to home. The spirited, rattling buskabilly of ‘Towards the Setting Sun’ and the warm, elegant ‘Magnificent Mistake’ are both cloaked in Celtic-tinged fiddles and mandolins, while the sparse, cracked intimacy of ‘Heavy Load’ and the startling domestic disharmony tale ‘Frank Sinatra’ provide wonderful showcases for O’Connor’s tremulous quaver of a voice.

He’s not afraid to turn up the amps when the mood takes him either. Both ‘Stand So Tall’ and ‘Longshot’ make a good fist of driving, anthemic Blue Collar Rock’n’Roll, while ‘Summer Nights Eruption’ is built upon sneaky basslines, dissonant guitars and a robust groove. The fact it harbours a love, betrayal and retribution scenario reminiscent of the evergreen ‘Hey Joe’ only ramps its chill factor up several notches further.   O’Connor’s long since proved his versatility but he keeps his best in reserve for the closing ‘Alice’: a dreamy, atmospheric treat reminiscent of the best bits of Daniel Lanois’ ‘Acadie’ album.

‘Together We Are All Alone’, then, brings us tales of desperation and brutal intimacy, but its’ musical palette is broad, convincing and quite frequently glorious. At its best it suggests Eamonn O’Connor’s continued persistence might just bust down that door to wider acceptance in the not too distant future.


Lucky Bones online


Lucky Bones on Myspace
  author: Tim Peacock

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LUCKY BONES - TOGETHER WE ARE ALL ALONE