XLR8 2021
Time Eats Everything
Hard-rocking veterans discover ways to not get devoured by years passing by – by sticking in the listener’s memory.
Don’t be fooled by this album’s playful cover, as there’s nothing lightweight on “Time Eats Everything”; more so, this record aspires to prove, via infectious grooves, that temporal issues only abet the band in hitting their stride and getting where multi-instrumentalist Brett Richey has always been headed. While 2017’s "The Road Not Taken" – which signaled the ensemble’s return to the scene – looked pale and sounded a tad tentative in terms of AOR-offered possibilities, its follow-up finds the Arizona-located trio pulling all the stops to remove any dinosaur-type notions from one’s mind.
As lush harmonies and mighty beat set things in motion with “Off In The Distance” and Pat Laferty’s soft vocals pour sweetness in this melodic swirl of Richey’s strings and ivories, riffs may be slow to reveal the team’s heavy allure, yet once they do so there’s no going back, and the punchy funk of “Few & Far” leaves the listener riveted to the group’s irresistible, albeit slightly menacing, dynamics. They can be translucent, as proved by “Better” that Tom Carr’s drums drive through raga curlicues, and muscular, as raging bluesy figures behind “Red Light” suggest, but “low on gasoline” they aren’t for sure, and if “Jimmy Had A Plan” is possessed with swagger and vulnerability in equal measure, the instant classic “Outside The World Looking In” is prone to power balladry.
That’s why, when the elegiac “Taking A Break” brings this journey to a close, one can only hope the ensemble are not going to stop here and now.
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