Ghost Hounds – Last Train To Nowhere
Ghost Hounds open up old wounds but deliver their sad tales with enough composure and pop likeability to ensure that listeners are more thrilled than shocked.
Delivering bad news has always been something with which classic entertainment has struggled. Back in the 1960s, for example, few Western movie productions included true villains. When they did exist, their terrible deeds appeared merely as an allusion.
Audiences tend to seek out entertainment as a way to run from their problems. But, alas, those burdens are never fully removed. The most clever of entertainers have found ways to allow audiences the luxury of experiencing hardships from a safe distance.
The first thing to notice about Ghost Hounds’s “Last Train To Nowhere” is that it’s well-produced and performed. The distant second thing to notice is just how much tragedy is captured in the lyrics. This isn’t classic blues, of course. But it’s the kind of sound, roadtested and built for maximum impact, that’s sprung from the same well as the blues, and that has a real chance to reach modern listeners.
bigbaldben – The Antidote
bigbaldben gives in to his grungiest impulses on his new single “The Antidote,” and his music is all the better for it.
The old cliche about rock n’ roll choosing who it wants to spread its word is, unfortunately, a lie. Rock is never that demanding, and the public is rarely as driven by good taste as we’d like to imagine. Indeed, with so many people obviously, opting for pop music as a career choice, it’s clear that commercial potential is the most powerful driver.
There are some, however, that have made playing music such a part of their lives that giving it up would be akin to getting the drunk to kay down the bottle or the gambler to stop wagering money. For these people, playing music and spreading it around becomes an almost holy obligation.
bigbaldben’s “The Antidote” is a song that carries the hallmarks of 90s alt-rock, the era in which this singer-songwriter got his start. There was nothing wrong with grunge dynamics then, and we shouldn’t assume that there’s anything wrong now. “The Antidote” features a large, gritty sound that proclaims Seattle to be the Mecca of the rock world for the foreseeable future.
