Eric Brace & Last Train Home - Everything Will Be

Red Beet Records

****1/2

25 years since its eponymous debut, Last Train Home—led by acclaimed singer-songwriter Eric Brace—remains an innovative band, well-versed on the Americana playbook, and still offering distinct contributions. As with previous albums, this latest set of sublime songs, is ultimately defined by Eric’s peerless vocals and lyricism. He mines deeper into topics related to the passing of time—seeking love, seeking beauty, seeking peace, making peace with old decisions … but infuses them with a fresh intensity.

For music fans who appreciate texture and melancholy tunefulness, the album’s overall character projects a musical nostalgia that touches more broadly on classic compositional forms or performance styles. Whether you’re looking for a helping hand, a boost of energy or a little companionship at night's end, this is the album for you. Offering a broad array of musical styles, Eric and his fellow musicians create sounds from building blocks that include power pop, New Orleans brass band, samba, 1970s pop revival, Bakersfield guitar-pickin’ and even a light-hearted cowboy croon. That diversity, at its core, is what has helped Last Train Home forge their own path and distinctive sound. While the band may tend to nod at the past, they are not a revivalist outfit. They blend these familiar sounds in slyly idiosyncratic, unique ways that give this album a handsome, modern feel that’s distinct from other retro-minded Americana records.

The album fashions a sonic passageway returning listeners to the essential concepts of human connection, romance and passionate love. They achieve this via seven originals penned by Eric and four cover songs, that fit snugly into the record’s underlying theme of the passage of time. While the melody of opening track Everything Will Be is rather predictable, the song includes a hook-y swerve and hip vocal annunciations that nudge the track toward infectiousness as the song puts across a hopeful message following the past couple of years of uncertainty. Next Time is one of those songs that captures something quiet and personal at the time, but now feels resonant and universal as we look toward (hopefully) better days. A rich and fully realised sound that leaves you pining for more, the lyrics revolve around the near certainty that those we’ve not seen for some time will have changed in some way or another when we next see them. On In the Dark, organ slithers around strident guitars and Eric’s vocal, creating layers of escalating sound and mimicking a retro Memphis smooth soul vibe replete with an energetic groove and smoky charisma. A fluid confidence permeates the sound, producing an affirming mood that’s as hypnotic as it is pleasing. Just A Moment, a co-write by Eric and Thomm Jutz, is an affirmation of life—the good, the bad, and the tragic. An enticing distillate of expressive and melodic essentiality, edged with restlessness, profoundly intense and evocative, with Scott McKnight’s stunning baritone guitar solo and the contented vocal harmonies keeping the music fresh and warm.

A brassy horn section opens If I Had A Nickel, leading into a loose, freewheeling arrangement, which brings to mind the Faces and the Kinks transplanted into a New Orleans jazz club, with layers of bluesy trumpet and sax that storm and shimmer to exuberant vocals and a ragtime piano, straight out of some dark and enticing speakeasy. They give John Hartford’s little-known The Six O’Clock Train And The Girl With Green Eyes, a more laid-back, free-floating, airy treatment. Subtle horns coast along with rare delicacy, perfectly capturing the vibe of fear and doubt of whether the girl will miraculously alight from the train. Johnny Mercer’s I’m An Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande), is given a unique, fresh arrangement that on paper should never work, yet is a pure delight from start to finish and deserving of repeated plays in order to fully appreciate all the little intricacies. They close the album most appropriately with a revival of McGuinness Flint’s perennial When I’m Dead And Gone. It heads straight for the brain's joy receptors as the they build up a massive group singalong, and damned if it doesn’t hit its target. From delicate and mellow storytelling, through to more gritty tracks this album is an eclectic collation of 11 tracks, all deserving of wider exposure, but which wonderfully jigsaw together to form one outstanding masterpiece of sound.

www.redbeetrecords.com

January 2022