The New CD Goes All About Town
by Jack Neely
Advance tapes of the V-Roys second CD, All About Tow, have been slipping all about town for months, too good to keep to yourself, furtively shared like a quart of good splo. The official, licensed, street-legal CD was originally to be released by Warner Brothers in August, giving the boys the national exposure we knew they deserved -- but then it wasn't. The 'Roys original label, Steve Earle's E-Squared, would have seemed the logical emergency backup, but for a few sobering weeks, rumor had it that wasn't working out, either. A month ago, we were beginning to fear All About Town was fated to be one of those urban myths, the great album that was never released.
The delays and the rumors don't matter anymore. It's out, you can buy it, it's great.
If you're like me, and you've played the first V-Roys CD, Just Add Ice,
so much your laser stylus has worn holes in it you can see through, this
new one will startle you.
You notice it before proper start of the first cut "Look Out Your Window";
there's big-time spooky electronic stuff going on here. They may have opened
the record with that heavy-duty cut to wash the slate of expectations based
on the V-Roys more straight-ahead debut. And they may have used it because
it's just a great song, the first of several.
It turns out to be the most electronically manipulated piece on the
record, with Steve Earle himself leading on electric guitar (Earle co-wrote
this and two other songs). The whole opus seems more carefully produced
than the first, with the help of several session musicians, including fiddler
Jason Carter and Ronnie and Robbie McCoury (mandolin and banjo) and, on
one song, even saxophones.
Those horns are on Mike Harrison's bright "Amy 88" one of the CD's
two or three best shots at a radio song. We should be used to being ambushed
by the V-Roys' sharp choruses, but this is one I've been trying to get
out of my mind for days. "Amy 88 runs into my heart, tears it all apart
in the driveway" -- who else but a V-Roy could write that? (If they ever
put out an album, called the V-Roys Greatest Middle 8's, I'll be
tempted.)
See, even with all that extra help, All About Town is still pure VRoys.
What that is is harder to define. They somehow combine an often melancholy
imagination that might make you think of Poe, with an open-throttle energy
that might make you think of Earnhardt -- and a tight discipline you don't
expect from poets or country boys.
You can read the discipline in the liner notes; the average song length
is well under three minutes (a couple clock in just under two). Introductions
and instrumental breaks are minimal. You get the impression these songs
have been distilled down to their essence, then distilled again just to
increase the proof.
Caffeinated with tambourines, several songs might evoke the 60's, make
you wonder what would have happened to radio pop music if it had taken
a different turn about 1968 -- that is, if Led Zeppelin hadn't convinced
thousands of lesser bands that sloppy improvisation and electric-guitar
posturing was the way to go. Maybe what the Beatles would have done if
they hadn't broken up before any of them hit 30.
That might seem an odd thing to say, considering that the V-Roys have
been billed as a "country-rock" band since they got together five years
ago. Metro Pulse readers have regularly voted them Knoxville's best country
band for the last few years, and country is one of few categories they'd
own up to. There may be more pure country stuff on this album than there
was on the first. Still and all, this record will likely remind you more
of Abbey road than Copperhead Road. Listen to "Arianne," a Miller-Earle
ballad about a drowning in a river -- an East Tennessee theme, no question,
but the falsetto chorus sounds downright Liverpudlian.
Like the Beatles and few other bands, the V-Roys feature tow lead singer/songwriters--Scott
Miller and Mike Harrison distinctly different personalities who swap between
Harrison's powerful pop and Miller's brooding ballads; between Harrison's
earthy baritone and Miller's dangerously lonesome tenor. Jeff Bills on
drums and Paxton Sellers on bass somehow keep it all together and moving
forward.
Besides the poppy rockers, there are three or four of the rural-tinged
ballads like "Mary" that Miller was well-known for hereabouts before the
V-Roys got together. there's a rousing Celtic-influenced by Harrison (with
a hand drum and tin whistle, no less). And there's that bluegrass, on "Virginia
Way".
If you didn't know, you 'd never guess that these songs were by the
same band; the FBI would have to bring in the voice analysis units and
maybe the hound dogs to prove it. There's more acoustic folk than there
was on the first album, but also more electronic tricks. It can be a little
jarring to listen to straight through, like swapping espresso for George
Dickel then back again, but it's generally worth the systemic confusion.
The most personal song on the record is Miller's "Fade Away." If you've
seen them play live lately, you've heard it before and likely figured,
as I did, it was an especially poignant evocation of love gone wrong. You
may not realize what the son's about until you read the lyrics, and notice
the album's dedication.
That song, the last one on the CD, doesn't fade away at all. Leave
the CD spinning after the liner notes tell you it's all over and you'll
be treated to an unlisted banjo-mandolin breakdown, presumably the McCoury
brothers. Sure, it sticks out, but so does nearly every song on this album.
The V-Roys have every right to be considered one of the best rock 'n'
roll bands in America. If America doesn't get it this time, it's America's
own dumb-ass fault.