Local CD of the Week: 46 Long's "Time's Right"

It was a tough week to decide which locally-produced release gets "CD of the Week" honors. There are three new ones getting CD release-partied this week and all of them are quality efforts.

There's Garage Rock trio The Lions Rampant, who are releasing their new one, Plays Rock N Roll, this Saturday at the Gypsy Hut in Northside. It’s hard to be distinct in a field (Garage Rock) where everyone sounds like they’re trying to replicate records from 40 years ago. But the Lions’ have an energized yet graceful and more compact vision and that makes Play Rock N Roll stand out like a flower blossoming from a sidewalk crack. The Lions are a triumph-over-tragedy story in the making — their drummer has been undergoing cancer treatment, but they've been plugging away regardless, having friends help out on the record and at shows. There's no false advertising in the title — The LR indeed is playin' some Rock & Roll on this disc (somewhere in between Mudhoney and The Hives). And they're playing it very damn well, I might add.

Then there's Ric Hickey's newest, Bittersweetheart. Ric's a contributing writer to CityBeat and the knowledge of music he shows in his reviews and articles is also evident in his music. BIttersweetheart is an all-acoustic album, sprinkled with some instrumental interludes (Ric is a jaw-dropping guitarist on acoustic and electric), but mostly featuring Ric's great songs about heartbreak, from the build-up to the aftermath. I can strongly identify right now — this album and the new 500 Miles to Memphis record have been hard to listen to with a broken heart. That says a lot about Ric's writing. And it's well worth the pain. Ric's going to play acoustic and with his band The Loose Wrecks this Saturday at the Southgate House's Parlour.

You can find reviews of both of those quality discs in Wednesday's new issue of CityBeat. But, in honor of Cincy Blues Fest weekend, we'll place the "Local CD of the Week" crown and sash on impressive Acoustic Blues duo 46 Long and their latest, Time's Right. OK, so 46 Long isn't actually playing the Blues Fest … but they should be.

The Blues is also a genre that is hard to stand out in. If you push the formula too much, you lose purists, who are the music's biggest supporters. If you don't try anything remotely new, you might get stuck playing “Mustang Sally” every Tuesday night at some hotel lounge.

Acoustic duo 46 Long aren't reinventing the proverbial wheel by any means, but their presentation — acoustic guitar, vocals and harmonica, sparse percussion — has a natural, bare vibe that is incredibly magnetic to the ears. Acoustic Blues players may be a dime a dozen, but the strong songcraft and singer/harpist Blake Taylor's unique, masterful playing style (he uses the harmonica as both a rhythm and lead instrument) give them an edge over the competition.

The bulk of Time's Right is made up of original songs by Taylor and singer/acoustic guitarist Jonathan Reynolds, though they put their spin on a few traditional songs as well (“Midnight Special,” an especially impressive “Death Letter”). There's a nice, subtle diversity between the tracks, but not necessarily in the “This is Delta Blues; This is Chicago Blues; etc.” whiplash manner their peers prefer. Not that they don't touch on all of that — it's just not as “cut and dry” as others' attempts at diversity.

Their take on Bukka White's “Aberdeen” keeps it in the Delta, but Reynolds' percussive playing and Taylor's train-chug blowing give it a different perspective. “My Baby's Away” features deep croons (a la Elvis) and it slides on Reynolds' jazzier-than-usual strums. It's probably the most “accessible” of all of the tracks (and kind of reminds me of local rockers Buckra in velvet-lounge mode). With “East 13,” Taylor sings of his hometown — the good, bad and ugly — inspired by the “riots” of 2001. It's a great slice of Urban Americana, without being judgmental. It's presented as part requiem/part short-storytelling and Taylor makes his chromatic harmonica echo the pain of those stories.

On the downside, the recording quality is a little bit too undercooked. The band's format is great because nothing gets lost in the mix and you can connect with a song easier. But the vocals, in particular, sound muffled, as if they were recorded in a shoe box.

Also, the band falls back on “woman done left me”-type lyrics too often. They show that they can rise above that on many of the other songs, but on cuts like “Shame on Me,” they can't resist rote lines like “Fooled me once, shame on you/This time shame on me” and “When I first met you baby/It was late at night/You looked so good/And you felt so right.” After the powerful words of “East 13,” it's harder to take because you know they're capable of so much more. When cliches are used too much in any form of music, you start to suspect that the writer isn't writing with his or her heart — they're writing with their brain.

There are those who think that middle-class whiteys have no right to sing the Blues. But 46 Long are less like Blues tourists and more like commentators, writing about different “bluesy” situations that are universal. The writing is strong and (mostly) from the heart, working so well with the minimalist motif, it doesn't seem that minimal at all.

The duo celebrates the new album's release Wednesday at Arnold's. The fun starts at 7 p.m.

— Mike Breen

Comments

[Blake]

Thanks, Mike! You rock. If any of you folks are interested, our Myspace page (which has actually been updated in the last couple years) is http://www.myspace.com/46long

Hope to see some of you out Wednesday at Arnolds!

- Blake (and Jonathan)
46 Long