The Elms – The Chess Hotel
-Track Listing-
I Am the World
Who Puts Rock & Roll In Your Blood?
Nothin’ To Do With Love
Makes Good Sense
I Left My Body And Never Came Back
She’s Cold
The Chess Hotel
Bring Me Your Tea
The Way I Will
The Downtown King
Black Peach
The Towers & The Trains
I’ve Been Wrong
Wow…where do I begin? This is quite possibly the best album I’ve heard this year. The Elms continue to progress with each release but don’t stray too terribly far from home. That home is rooted firmly in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The Elms have already proven that they have a knack for Beatles/Beach Boys harmonies and hooks. They have also demonstrated a fondness for Byrds/REM/Tom Petty jangling guitars. Their last album (Truth, Soul, Rock & Roll) saw the Indiana-based band channeling Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on several tracks as well as the previously mentioned artists.
The new album throws in more sweet harmonies along with blistering guitar riffs and solos. Vocalist Owen Thomas has found a new voice on several tracks and it sounds as if he found it on some old Aerosmith records. He manages a scream or two that would make Steven Tyler proud. He has come a long way from the baby-faced kid with the sweet voice on the self-titled EP from 2000. This is a not-so kinder and gentler band. The pop sensibility is still there but the guitars take center stage on nearly every song and you can’t help but draw comparisons to Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, and (at times) Led Zeppelin.
Those looking for blatant evangelical lyrics will be disappointed but that doesn’t mean there is a lack of faith here or that these guys don’t have something important to say. Thomas has been quoted as saying “I go to the local hangs and play cards with guys who are 50 or 60 years old. What I hear most people say is that given the chance, they would have gotten out of this town. And I’m not pointing these things out to say that this is a horrible, deadbeat, mundane, burnout little place. What I’m trying to say is that there are millions of American people who, by and large, are victims of circumstance. Many in America are doing what they do because somebody told them that following their heart was not practical.”
Christians would do well to listen to the stories that Thomas has to share on the album and figure out how we (as the body of Christ) can bring Him into those places. Getting our faces rocked off in the process is an added bonus.
L’s Top Tracks (for the moment):
I Am The World
Nothin’ To Do With Love
Bring Me Your Tea
The Chess Hotel
