[The Band, Green To Think: Steve Piperno, vocals; David Piperno; guitar; Ken Adessa, drums; and Chris Smith, bass.]
The CD has no overall personality of its own, but instead takes the listener back and forth through rockers and ballads, drums of denouncement and scarred sentiments.
“Dear Urgency” could be the next “Friends” theme tune; not that it sounds the same but its snapshot moments of a lovelorn life could allude to any of TVs major sitcom themes. And the opening couplet “I turn the radio on / You turn the radio off” could launch any intro with dancing, making-faces-at-the-screen niftiness.
In other words, it’s the most commercial track and still sounds great; one of the disc’s best moments.
Just as I started rocking out to “Dear Urgency,” and the blood is a-pumping; the volume drops down for “Blonde,” a “being alone” tune that for some reason reminded me of Mr. Jame Gumb from Silence of the Lambs.
Perhaps it was this: Mom always said that patience is virtue / But I never meant to hurt you / Now look what I’ve done / And there’s not much left to who we used to be / And it’s empty now where we used to sleep.
I could see the cross-dressing human tanner, swaying to it in front of video camera and mirror. Since “Blonde” seems to be an ode to a former lover, perhaps my impression explains why there’s an ex here? Or not.
“Prisoner of War,” mutes the experience even more. It’s a plea for safe returns and missed contact from a stateside military spouse.
"Can You Hear Me?", rocks it like there’s no tomorrow, and “Paint Me Pictures”, though it has the best imagery, musically treads water.
“Hold On,” with its invocation of photographs through childhood is the purest experience. The urgent purr to “hold on” is a desire to both keep childhood and, it seemed to me, for the singer’s girlfriend to stay and look past his childishness, while he forcefully alters his priorities in life.
In an extension of the sentiment of “Hold On” the plaintive wail from the title track is the best listening moment of he CD; there’s an earnest edge to the vocals early on which drips desperation.
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