Kevin Meisel & the Ragged Glories

Brambus 200726-2

***½

Excellent roots pop set of songs from a man with a way with words

He’s an elusive man, Kevin Meisel. No website, no Myspace, no pictures on the net, one could-be-anybody picture of the band on the CD, nothing much on his record company site. His music is equally elusive. ‘Aha, John Mellencamp’ you think as you listen to opening track Rustbelt Girl. ‘No, Marshall Crenshaw’ you decide after Jealous Guy. OK, no, not them then, but definitely early Springsteen, you opine after Misguided Love. Then you listen to St Augustine and decide that it really doesn’t matter who he sounds like if he can write songs like this little gem, all biblical imagery and a staggering way with words (‘maybe the saints could say what convictions you carry to replenish what you’ll lose/when losing propositions are the things you can’t refuse’), set to a melody your feet couldn’t resist if they were wearing concrete boots.

Contrary to what you might expect, the mix of styles works really well, partly because Meisel is clearly both comfortable with, and good at, all of them, and partly because of the quality of the songs and playing, but mostly because he has a consistent voice that he carries across from song to song, style to style. Yes there are hints, some quite big, of others, but if you work in an acoustic roots rock style that’s inevitable and Meisel transcends them by using them to create his own fusion of influences and above all by the quality of his writing. This is apparently his third album but its taken nine years to get them out. It deserves to raise his profile sufficiently to enable him to release more frequently, which can only be a good thing. Jeremy Searle

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 11:53 am and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.