Josh T. Pearson Rough Trade In-store 11 February 2011
Friday, 11 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Josh T. Pearson album review 9 February 2011
6 Days From Tomorrow: Josh T. Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen
(by Si)
It lives! I’ve lost all my contact info and my email’s gone all weird, but that’s the price of progress, I guess… I now have another largely unexpected backlog of things that I had either forgotten I’d ordered or that had arrived earlier than expected.
In the latter of these two categories comes this absolute pearler of a record that seemingly isn’t out until next month, but that very kindly arrived last week thanks to the lovely mail-order types at Rough Trade records, who also see fit to add an exclusive bonus disc into the bargain. And given that my sole prior recollection of this artist was from a singularly intense support slot from a few years ago, this debut album is a huge surprise and yet another indication that 2011 is shaping up to be a brilliant and incredibly varied year for amazing music…
My only contact with Josh T. Pearson prior to this was as support to the Soulsavers back in July 2007, and the lasting impression I got from this was ‘pleasantly intimidating’ – plenty of Fire and Brimstone going on from an imposing figure totally committed to his performance and a guitar style bordering on destruction, coupled with a polite grace between songs, most memorably when he humbly introduced his cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart as if he needed permission from the Manchester audience to play it.
And now, almost four years later, his debut solo album has arrived and contains all the charm, passion and frailties of that performance. Last Of The Country Gentlemen may ‘only’ contain seven tracks, but it runs for almost an hour bookended by two short-ish (by comparison) songs, opener Thou Art Loosed with its refrain of “I’m off to save the World / At least I can hope” and closing with Drive Her Out‘s plea of “Help me and drive her out of my mind”, and takes in more dark roads and guilt-ridden souls than most artists can manage in whole careers.
It’s an incredibly intense album. The voice may be mostly quiet and reflective, and the guitar and occasional, sparingly-used string accompaniment plaintive and sorrowful, but it’s a record that takes the listener through some harrowing places such as the literally threatening Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell (“Don’t make me rule this home with the back of my hand”) and in Sweetheart, I Ain’t Your Christ where Simon and Garfunkel song titles are quoted at the end of a song rejecting someone who adores the tale’s main character with the line “It ain’t Christmas time it’s Easter, Honey Bunny”.
There’s no request for pity here either. The beautiful Country Dumb (the album’s highlight so far for me, and deserving lead single at a sprightly 10 minutes, released on the 20th of February) is a matter-of-fact statement of position and outlook, and even the apparently ultra-personal Sorry With a Song asks for no more than acceptance rather than forgiveness.
This could all be utterly depressing if it wasn’t for the honesty (however true or otherwise the artist may be to the character in each song, there’s no denying the conviction) and beauty of each story’s delivery both in terms of the vocals and of the guitar-playing that embrace them. There’s also a streak of very black humour at play in places as well such as the title of Honeymoon’s Great! Wish You Were Her, which again tells a sad story but retains enough knowing to realise that the uncontrollable situation has an element of the outwardly absurd to the onlooker.
The bonus disc is a comparatively breezy affair, flying through the album’s main five songs in a mere twenty-something minutes and largely replacing the acoustic guitar of the original versions with an electric, giving each track a more urgent slant and a feel that is more in keeping with the memory I have of his live performance. There’s no lack of emotion in these briefer renditions however, and this extra is almost as essential as the main album and well worth picking up.
It’s a stunning and vaguely disturbing record, but its sincerity is its charm and the music is pure, undiluted beauty. Maybe not something to be playing in the car on a sunny day, but definitely something that will be waiting for you to come round to its blackened charms to soothe your soul, even if it has no intention of saving it. There have already been some breathtaking albums so far this year, and this is pretty much at the top of the pile.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Josh T. Pearson's album Last of the Country Gentlemen named Rough Trade album of the month!
7 February 2011
Upfront import version, Rough Trade exclusive in digipack with a bonus 5 track CD featuring electric, instrumental and alternative versions of album tracks. It's worth the admission price alone. Lift to Experience were a totally loud rocking band, and, mainman Josh T. Pearson has the same intensity in his long awaited solo debut, but in a more brooding, quiet way. dealing with many similar themes, especially doubt, god and the apocalypse. His father was a 'fire and brimstone' style southern preacher and this strict religious upbringing has informed much of his musical output. This without doubt is one of the major albums of 2011. Instore and online now!
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Josh T. Pearson album review 27 January 2011
Glorious Noise: Josh T. Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen
(by Todd Totale)
(by Todd Totale)
How do you grade a perfect album? More to the point, how do you review an album so remarkable that its perfection will ultimately turn most listeners off?
And here is something else that will blow your mind: Most of the people who end up disliking Last Of The Country Gentlemen after they’ve heard it still won’t be able to pan it very much, because that would be like piling more agony on a guy that sounds like he’s just had the worst day of his entire life.
The back-story goes like this: Josh T. Pearson pulls the plug on the promising Lif to Experience band after one double album and a year of such enormous tragedy that it gets the band members to consider “Maybe this is a sign from a higher being that we should wrap it before things really get bad.”
For a man like Pearson - someone raised in a family with religious convictions - a sign from above is not something to ignore or take lightly.
During a nearly decadelong sabbatical, Pearson released only one song - an appropriate cover of a Hank Williams’ tune. Occasionally, he’d play a gig or two for fifty bucks, purposely avoiding the road to additional notoriety.
But at one show, he noticed that his epic tales of inner turmoil even brought tears to a pair of surely Irish meatheads. It was then that Josh T. Pearson decided he needed to record the material, because he realized that the music he created to resolve his own demons was powerful enough to emit a cathartic response in others.
Last Of The Country Gentlemen is sixty-minutes long with only seven songs to choose from. Do the math, and you’ll see that this means you’re in for a long ride. And with only Pearson’s last-call drawl and barely there instrumentation underneath, you’re going to need a moment or two to fully engulf this understated masterpiece.
The short track listing may be intimidating to some, but it is essential to this album’s success. Nearly every song is a slow build, and for many of them, things start getting jaw-droppingly good around the halfway point.
There’s a vague linear pattern that’s followed on the longer material, but you get the unnerving sense that he’s softening himself up a bit on the first half of the song before totally laying everything out on the song until it feels uncomfortably close to eavesdropping.
“Sweetheart I Ain’t Your Christ” starts with broken guitar scales before Pearson weaves a heart-wrenching tale of a love that’s parting. “You don’t need a lover or a friend,” he whispers. “You need a savior,” he continues, hitting each word with purpose, “And I am not … him.”
You can hear Pearson break down close to tears at some points. At others, he’ll pause for what seems like an eternity - leading the listener to believe the story is over. After the silence, he returns, leading us to believe that he needed a moment or two to collect himself before continuing ahead.
I don’t know how it will affect you, but I pushed back tears over a half-dozen times the first time I heard Last Of The Country Gentlemen. Sure, the impact had a lot to do with the material and the way it’s delivered, but the sheer honesty of this collection resonates with our compassion as people. If you don’t feel a tinge of empathy when you hear “I know no one knows more than I that I was wrong, and still I can barely say 'I’m sorry' with a fuckin’ song” ("Sorry With A Song") then maybe you’re part of what’s wrong with the world. The lack of civility of our elected leaders, the joy that we relish when people fail before us, and the way we address each other in digital anonymity - all of these traits are the polar opposite of what’s taking place in this record.
There’s a sense of caring within Last Of The Country Gentlemen’s devastation - even when the narrator’s struggling with his own sin and guilt. Yes, there’s a bunch of spiritual imagery throughout the album, giving the confessional a heavier tone and those moments of silence an added poignancy.
Give it the time it deserves and you’ll hear how a quick, minimally arranged weekend recording of a Texan abroad can stand above most anything else you’ll hear all year.
Listen again and you may even hear something beyond the album of the year accolaids that Last Of The Country Gentlemen will undoubtedly receive. You may hear a record that can warm your heart enough that it points the way to your own redemption.
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