Lewi Longmire's band from Portland, Oregon describe themselves as a "blue collar rock and roll power trio in the classic vein" which pretty well covers all the bases.
Lewi is a familiar figure on the Pacific North-West music scene having played guitar for an impressively diverse range of artists including Jackie O Motherfucker, Victoria Williams, The Minus 5 and Michael Hurley.
This album finds him exploring his Americana roots and was recorded with the help of local producer Adam Selzer to capture a no-nonsense, live sound.
The old school approach can be gauged from the fact that it is physically released only on vinyl (although this includes a digital download card printed on seeded paper which can be planted after use!).
In the songs, love is presented as a medicine to cure ills in Blues Blown Away and as having the power to turn blood into wine then turpentine in Save Yourself . Darkest Night , Kept A Picture and Since You Left Home explore the bitter downside of romance.
El Dorado is a grungy Neil Young style ballad about a guy with suicidal tendencies but, although harmony driven rock ballads dominate the album, the two best tracks reveal Longmire's folk/bluegrass influences.
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Vanport 1948 is a first person narrative of the Multnomah County flood which destroyed a housing project; a disaster which, as with the more recent devastation of New Orleans, revealed a fundamental disregard by officialdom for the local black population.
The Ballad Of Me & Sweet Marie is a slide guitar driven ballad of a man learning the hard way that material goods are no substitute for emotional commitment and realising too late that "the most precious gift to give someone is to let them in your heart"
These two songs are both excellent and are the obvious highlights of what is otherwise an honest but unspectacular rock album.
Lewi Longmire's Website
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