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Music Road Records [Release date 01.07.13]
Slaid Cleaves is an Americana singer-songwriter who pens insightful story telling and relationship songs of which there are several.
You may wonder if there’s still an audience for the troubadour in these post modern times, but Cleaves quickly banishes any lingering doubts with poignant tales that have an emotional pull and an essential musical depth.
His gradual ascent in the roots music world finally bore fruit with the millennium album ‘Broke Down’. You suspect that the relentless road work has probably given him plenty of source material for a range of songs that shift from the magnificent title track, to heartfelt love songs and a final spiritual denouement.
He’s a clever and thoughtful songwriter given to third person narratives that represent people he knows and convey his meanings and observations. Slaid has a beguiling voice that adds an emotional emphasis when required, and he varies his phrasing to evoke the emotion of Jackson Brown and the indignation of Woody Guthrie.
His songs rarely preach, but when required they always make a good case for the prosecution, as on the title track and the blue collar woes of ‘Rust Belt Fields’.
The emphasis is wholly on the stories, the songs and the telling thereof. He’s a master craftsman for whom the perfect lyric is the key to unlocking the door to the rest of a verse or the whole of a song.
He may essentially be a folk singer, but the album is carried by musical variety, changing tempos and different arrangements that reflect the three different contributing producers. Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Mark Hallman and Lloyd Mains are all multi instrumentalists who have got inside the songs to imbue them with deep solos and rich tone colours, while Slaid is never too far away from a defining melody.
The lyrics of ‘Welding Burns’ make their point adroitly, but the song also benefits from a percussive feel and a soaring hook to round off a jangling guitar filled melody. Slaid’s musical journey encompasses all that is good about Americana. The subtle interwoven lyrics, intuitive phrasing and the deep musical roots give the album its flow and essential core dynamic.
He shifts his focus from the dislocated Iraqi war veteran of the title track – which is both the single and the album highlight – to the blue collar pain of ‘Rust Belt Fields’ and ‘Welding Burns’, and love songs such as the moving ‘Without Her’ and the beautifully poised ‘Gone’. He finds apparent contentment on the schmaltzy Texas Love Song’, which mirrors his feelings for his adopted state, and uncovers emotional vulnerability on the Dylan inspired ‘In The Rain’, before discovering self affirmation and spiritual healing on ‘Go for the Gold’ and ‘Voice of Midnight’.
‘Still Fighting the War’ is an impressive album that grows on you with every repeated play. The music is subtle, insistent and enveloping. Sometimes the melody takes over as on the jangling guitars of ‘Welding Burns’ while at other times the subtleties are to be found in the nuanced guitar tones of ‘Rust Belt Fields’, a familiar tale of corporate greed, which manages to rhyme ‘elbow grease’ with ‘Chinese’.
Cleave also gives his fellow musicians plenty of room to fill out the songs, as evidenced by the brushed strokes and multi instrumental contribution of producer Mark Hallman and fiddle player Elana James on ‘Gone’. Lloyd Maines similarly adds another sound spectrum with pedal steel on ‘God’s Own Yodeller’, an ode to the late Don Walser, who Slaid used to play with.
‘Still Fighting the War’ is a significant step in getting Slaid’s material heard, played and appreciated. Given the quality of this album, he should shortly achieve all three objectives with plenty to spare. **** (4/5)
Review by Pete Feenstra
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