‘Glory Bound’ is the second album by husband and wife team The Grahams.
Opening with the title track ‘Glory Bound’ the record rushes the listener headlong into foot stomping production, big vocals and an instant AOR radio friendly track.
A catchy opening verse, full of hindsight, memorable, and we can imagine it has deliberately been written with the intention of gaining as much airplay as possible.
Wish I hadn’t done the things I did when I was young. All the little tablets I melted on my tongue. All the stupid arguments, the banners that I hung. Lord I wish I never done the things I did when I was young.
‘Gambling Girl’ follows and keeps the record in the same sounding vein. At this point we find ourselves comparing the recording to the Mutt Lange/Shania Twain sound of the late 90s when Country went commercial in big and not necessarily good way.
‘Blow by Blow’ ushers in a much appreciated change in style and tone. The folk-tinged guitar and mandolin riff and sombre vocal by Alyssa Graham brings the record back to our attention. The production is down played and perfectly in tone with the song. The song tells stories of the loss of loved ones and dealing with the memories they leave behind.
Nothing blows through you like being alone.
Alyssa and Doug Graham have spent nearly their entire lives exploring music together. Friends since she was 7 and he was 9, they became a couple in their teens, then husband and wife. Their first song-crafting expedition, along the Mississippi’s Great River Road, became their 2013 debut, ‘Riverman’s Daughter’. ‘Glory Bound’ follows up with songs co-written by long time collaborator Bryan McCann.
‘Mama’ takes us into spiritual territory as with its prayer like tribute to a lost parent.
Mama’s wearing that golden halo. Mama’s wearing that golden halo. Hallelujah.
This is the strongest song on the record and it sounds like it was recorded live in the studio. On this one the Grahams take us on journey into Carter Family territory and they do it well.
‘The Wild One’ sounds uncannily like Van Morrison’s ‘And It Stoned Me’. It’s a tale of love and loss between the high school rebel and the good girl who is the only one who understands him. The story ends in somewhat clichéd tragedy with a dodgy down shift leading into a motor bike crash as our heroine sings the chorus based on her late lovers call for her to retain her individualism and never conform.
Over all this isn’t a bad record it just needs to make up its mind if it is trying to be a hit record or something with more substance that a listener will go back to. The songs are good, but the subject matter is clichéd in places and the over produced commercial sound doesn’t make it an easy listen and is also somewhat detrimental to the authenticity of the deeper more emotional songs.
As musicians and singers the Grahams are very talented and we look forward to hearing them in Belfast in November when they play The Real Music Club as we do believe that with a more stripped down live set the songs will sound better and more of the authenticity that they’ve tried to create and lost on the record will come out.
The Grahams play Belfast on the 20th November 2015 and tickets available now via Ticketsource