A.A. Bondy, "When The Devil's Loose" 02/17/2010
By Doug Kaplan
✭✭✭✭
Scott Bondy's vocals sound as if Bob Dylan had inhaled an extraordinarily small dose of helium from a balloon, and began to sing - but in a good way. After leaving his first band, Verbena, he has finally found the right sound with his newest project, A.A. Bondy. Verbena was a rock band, featuring blaring solos and distortion pedals, but after knowing how good Bondy’s solo efforts are I cannot fathom him having stayed in that band one day longer.
This review is coming at a rather untraditional time, roughly a full year after When The Devil’s Loose’s release. I only feel compelled to review this album so late because it is, for lack of a more educated phrase, just so damn good.
After leaving his band, Bondy released an acoustic solo album entitled American Hearts in 2007. I listened to the album during my lunch periods in high school and thought it was impressive but too simple and/or gentle. I passed the album off to my father who had a more typical middle-aged white suburban taste. He enjoyed the album but stuck with his heavy rotation of Gin Blossoms and Bruce Springsteen on his daily VW drive to Manhattan.
Bondy’s second album, When the Devil’s Loose, was released mid 2009. It wasn’t until Bondy’s latest Daytrotter session that I gave his newest album a fair try, and it blew my face off.
Unlike Bondy’s first solo effort, in which he wrote the songs while staring out his friend’s kitchen into the snow of Rosendale, New York, this one was primarily written in Mississippi. The album features a variety of instruments, but less harmonica than I had hoped for; one of Bondy’s staple live instruments. The first track, “The Mightiest of Guns”, is a quiet rant that ropes listeners in.
The second track, “A Slow Parade”, takes those listeners and staples them to their headphones until the album is finished, repeated, and finished again. It is on this song that Bondy’s true lyrical genius shines through. Marching in a slow parade/ There are ashes where you laid/ You’re just a rider at the wheel/In a dream where love was real. The album melts into the title track, “When the Devil’s Loose” - Oh the living, and the dying, how easily you bruise/Oh Delia don’t good down when the devil’s loose.
With the exception of track five, “Oh the Vampyre”, the album is arranged in beautiful fashion. This track stands alone in drawing my finger to the skip button. However, I could definitely see myself liking it if I was one of those ever so prevalent Twilight or True Blood fans that exist in the craze of today. My dismissive tendencies are also due to the fact that the album’s single follows right after.
“I Can Feel the Pines are Dancing” is probably the best track written on this album. The studio recording features two distinctive vocal keys. When played live, the song features long harmonica solos and only the higher vocals. I constantly find myself on the fence over which version is superior. Regardless, the song is a masterpiece.
Track nine, “The Mercy Wheel, is my favorite song of Bondy’s. The chorus seems to consistently evoke a powerful emotion - Into the mercy wheel/See it spinning/In the twilight/Now tell me how do you feel? Wanting to know what others are thinking is a universal feeling and easily relatable.
The album concludes with one of the only tracks not written in Mississippi, but rather New York. “The Coal Hits the Fire” closes the ten-song effort perfectly. The song sounds as if Uncle Sam himself was playing the pounding march of the snare drum.
Overall this is album is a brilliant creation. It does nothing new, but does everything right. I cannot wait to see where A.A. Bondy will take his future albums, but in the meantime I will be more than satisfied listening to When the Devil’s Loose time and time over again.
1. Mightiest of Guns
2. A Slow Parade
3. When The Devil’s Loose
4. To The Morning
5. Oh The Vampyre
6. I Can See The Pines Are Dancing
7. False River
8. On The Moon
9. The Mercy Wheel
10. The Coal Hits The Fire
✭✭✭✭
Scott Bondy's vocals sound as if Bob Dylan had inhaled an extraordinarily small dose of helium from a balloon, and began to sing - but in a good way. After leaving his first band, Verbena, he has finally found the right sound with his newest project, A.A. Bondy. Verbena was a rock band, featuring blaring solos and distortion pedals, but after knowing how good Bondy’s solo efforts are I cannot fathom him having stayed in that band one day longer.
This review is coming at a rather untraditional time, roughly a full year after When The Devil’s Loose’s release. I only feel compelled to review this album so late because it is, for lack of a more educated phrase, just so damn good.
After leaving his band, Bondy released an acoustic solo album entitled American Hearts in 2007. I listened to the album during my lunch periods in high school and thought it was impressive but too simple and/or gentle. I passed the album off to my father who had a more typical middle-aged white suburban taste. He enjoyed the album but stuck with his heavy rotation of Gin Blossoms and Bruce Springsteen on his daily VW drive to Manhattan.
Bondy’s second album, When the Devil’s Loose, was released mid 2009. It wasn’t until Bondy’s latest Daytrotter session that I gave his newest album a fair try, and it blew my face off.
Unlike Bondy’s first solo effort, in which he wrote the songs while staring out his friend’s kitchen into the snow of Rosendale, New York, this one was primarily written in Mississippi. The album features a variety of instruments, but less harmonica than I had hoped for; one of Bondy’s staple live instruments. The first track, “The Mightiest of Guns”, is a quiet rant that ropes listeners in.
The second track, “A Slow Parade”, takes those listeners and staples them to their headphones until the album is finished, repeated, and finished again. It is on this song that Bondy’s true lyrical genius shines through. Marching in a slow parade/ There are ashes where you laid/ You’re just a rider at the wheel/In a dream where love was real. The album melts into the title track, “When the Devil’s Loose” - Oh the living, and the dying, how easily you bruise/Oh Delia don’t good down when the devil’s loose.
With the exception of track five, “Oh the Vampyre”, the album is arranged in beautiful fashion. This track stands alone in drawing my finger to the skip button. However, I could definitely see myself liking it if I was one of those ever so prevalent Twilight or True Blood fans that exist in the craze of today. My dismissive tendencies are also due to the fact that the album’s single follows right after.
“I Can Feel the Pines are Dancing” is probably the best track written on this album. The studio recording features two distinctive vocal keys. When played live, the song features long harmonica solos and only the higher vocals. I constantly find myself on the fence over which version is superior. Regardless, the song is a masterpiece.
Track nine, “The Mercy Wheel, is my favorite song of Bondy’s. The chorus seems to consistently evoke a powerful emotion - Into the mercy wheel/See it spinning/In the twilight/Now tell me how do you feel? Wanting to know what others are thinking is a universal feeling and easily relatable.
The album concludes with one of the only tracks not written in Mississippi, but rather New York. “The Coal Hits the Fire” closes the ten-song effort perfectly. The song sounds as if Uncle Sam himself was playing the pounding march of the snare drum.
Overall this is album is a brilliant creation. It does nothing new, but does everything right. I cannot wait to see where A.A. Bondy will take his future albums, but in the meantime I will be more than satisfied listening to When the Devil’s Loose time and time over again.
1. Mightiest of Guns
2. A Slow Parade
3. When The Devil’s Loose
4. To The Morning
5. Oh The Vampyre
6. I Can See The Pines Are Dancing
7. False River
8. On The Moon
9. The Mercy Wheel
10. The Coal Hits The Fire
Comments
Wed, 16 Mar 2011 2:39:39 am
album but stuck with his heavy rotation of Gin Blossoms and Bruce Springsteen on his daily VW drive to Manhattan.
