Blooming lovely! It may be late and even long overdue, but we’re ready for more from The Long Version.
SKATES ON
A name so new the band barely have got used to it themselves, it is the album name that carries more of the biographical gravity you need. Listen to the words of the title track and, if not all, much is described, allegorically if not necessarily actually. Some background may help, in that, on hitting a milestone birt hday, singer (and bassist), Tricia Davies Hearn, realised if she were ever going to front her own band, well, she’d better get her skates on. Summoning around kindred spirits in Jon Heal, guitar, Carl Pittman, keyboards and veteran drummer, David Krupski, the London based Seattle native clearly showed the right sort of promise, with no less than Peter Bruntnell being eager to produce. Ready or not, they were a band and had a record to make.
It helps if you can write songs that have a timeless jangle, fusing country with enough rock and pop nous to render it palatable to audiences of who, individually, might be wary of any of those words as a stand alone description. Davies Hearn, who writes all but two of the songs here, certainly can. Her influences, cited as Sheryl Crow, John Denver and the Carpenters might strike, in part, a slight note of caution, but any tendency toward treacle is firmly butted away, and it is more the sound of vintage Mary Chapin Carpenter I am hearing, with a hint of Nanci Griffith chiming in, whenever her contralto cracks.
AIMIABLE CHUG OF INTERCONNECTING GUITARS
Short Time Young breezes off the blocks to introduce the band. With an amiable chug of interconnecting guitars, the sound is immediately somewhere south of Laredo, and could come from any time where denim remains a fashion statement, if paired with cowboy boots. An organ simmers in the sidings and the bass and drums sit proud, stage central. Davies Hearn sounds a mix of smooth and sultry, smoky tones that embellish the instrumental garnish, with Heal dashing off a neat and nifty solo toward the end.
As the aforementioned title track picks up that promise, the mood becomes that of a slow burn of intent. As Pittman’s keys swell, beneath Davies Nairn’s ruminative vocal, a certain other band come to mind, the Delines, a band that stayed in her home town. High praise, yes, but not, I feel, hyperbole. As she seeps out the words, who knows what different future staying put might have imparted. Producer Bruntnell adds lap steel on this one, more gild to the lily.
Guitarist, Heal, calls himself the George of the group, and it is the first of his two songs that follows. With a more battered roadworn vessel of a voice, he takes the microphone for Early Days. A slighter beast in construction, it is nonetheless perfect for his weary delivery, picking up as he adds mandolin, and some banjo from Bruntnell filters in. Which leads to the first real banger in their barn, Call Me Baby, This song, unashamedly commercial, fires out with a jangletastic stride: “Are your ears burning“, sings Davies Hearn, “are your palms itchy?” She may as well have added are your geese bumping, as mine were. Yes, there is hint of Carly Rae Jepson in more than just the song’s title, and it is certainly as catchy. Terrific.
SPLENDID SEASONING
That momentum is maintained straight into Sugar And Salt, with a style and melody that suddenly invokes Rockpile, in country mode, as they fronted Carlene Carter. “Please take me with a spoonful of sugar, and I’ll take you with a little pinch of salt“. Either way, the seasoning is splendid. And, having had the album title as a song, now it is the turn of the band name. Starting with some majestic organ chordage, it smacks all of an anthem in genesis, and is a paean to extending a song, for the purposes of prolonging the accompanying slow dance. Think Joe Jackson’s Slow Song, but with spurs. In the end it is only three minutes forty two, but hey, none of us are getting any younger.
Heal’s second, Tall Stories, is a further opportunity for the contrasts in the band to become more evident, his dust to the diamanté elsewhere, if you will. Awash with more jangle, it is a lively sawdust-kicking chugger. Keep an ear also on the bass, that too coming from him, here and in his earlier song. Apparently his first instrument, he had to swap to guitar to join the band, luckily pretty adept there also. Banger number two follows, Ice Queen, or, as I first heard it mistakenly, Ice Cream. Another western piledriver, it dives straight to an Americana heart, combining witty wordplay to a relentless rhythmic overlay. I quite like my mis-hearing, too. What are called “gang vocals” come from the rest of the band and Bruntnell, they sounding like a roadhouse chef’s choir of kitchen rowdies. That culinary aspect is further enhanced by another finger-licking solo from Heal.
TWANG FACTOR
The positive energy is maintained for Stay Close, an ode to mid-life passion. Poppier than anything else here, it still has sufficient twang factor to appease any purists present. (Guilty!) It features another of the languid and concise guitar solos that are gradually stacking up, possibly this time from Bruntnell, clearly a hands on in the studio sort of guy. Pittman has switched to piano, and his ripples of cowpokey tinkle ring true with authenticity. Appreciating their closing statement might need a foot on the brake, Measure Of A Life offers just that, and is a reflective piece, musing on how to do just that, and, given it being in memory of a named individual, with reference the life lived. Just voice and strummed acoustic, at least to start, before Bruntnell ladles in some lush keyboard fauxchestration and a soupcon of lap steel.
MORE PLEASE
There isn’t an answer to that question, how to truly measure a life. However I think I have the measure of this enticing debut. If this isn’t, and soon, under Bob Harris’s radar and onto his show, I’ll be amazed. Me, I’ll just be happy with second helpings, so keep it coming, The Long Version.
Here’s the title track:
The Long Version: Website