Brooklyn boy born and raised
chopping lines hey hey it's my birthday are the opening lines to singer-songwriter Kevin Devine's transcendent new album Put Your Ghost To Rest, his first from Capitol Records.
The casually sung album emanates a feeling of nonchalance or an anxious self-assurance beginning with the opening song Brooklyn Boy. The kind of assurance that lies beneath the eyes of today's youth who are ready to set the world on fire, but afraid that the lingering smell of gasoline has somehow gotten on their hands.
Brooklyn Boy
a tale about a crazed lockjaw night on the town, turns into a query of life, purpose and choices made conjuring feelings of self-doubt.
A galloping acoustic guitar and supple piano chords accentuate the universal experience that Devine has tapped into. Your silver tongue/ It masks your hungry hate/ While your haggard heart whispers through its cracking cage/ You still can change ... This was a choice it was never a mistake.
The rest of Put Your Ghost To Rest are poetic introspections of Devine's thoughts on life, love and observations of the day's misdeeds that could just as easily be reminiscent of your own reveries.
In A Billion Bees
a song about two lovers under a dark blue sky who are in the grips of their uncertain future, broken chords are slowly plucked spelling out the angst that is felt against Devine's melancholic voice.
Less Yesterday
More Today hits the ears halfway through the album like a sharp beam of light from the Nashville skyline, knocking you sideways with the twang of the pedal steel guitar climbing up the neck into your ears.
The country influenced lament, Less yesterday/ And more today/ Yeah I gotta get my head on straight
is a refreshing change from the swaggering folk rock that characterizes most of the songs.
One of the highlights of the album is The Burning City Smoking an indictment of our current state of the union spurred from the New York City subway strikes. Devine sings the rollicking tune with the same grace as the rest of the album but writes like a man in distress.
The tabloids tell us hate the rat who strikes the subways closed and puts you out/ Forget those fifty hour tunnel weeks and helling steel dust poison through his mouth/ If our constant choice is skim and pass the writing on the wall/ Then I'm sad to say we're lost and I'm embarrassed for us all.
Put Your Ghost To Rest can be found in stores Oct. 17.
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Collin Minnis
