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CD
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DC 347CD
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"The connection between Randall and his mother band is evident from the kickoff track, 'Safety in the Sand,' which rolls like a rock group named Pearls and Brass, but with the rhythm section mysteriously disappeared and an acoustic guitar replacing the galloping electric. As different time signatures and tempos drift in through the performances, the preferred mode of expression remains acoustic, to haunting effect. Randall of Nazareth's take on the folk blues canon is expert, informed by the deities of the 19th and 20th centuries, but idiosyncratically his own. Picking and groaning, Randall streamlines the performances with discreet touches: jingling bells sweeping through 'Climbing Trees,' a chorus of harmony voices in the distance in 'It's Nice to Know,' extra licks on the guitar or vocal here and there. There's an inherent joy in the playing and the realization of these odd moments -- which is good, because there's a numbed loneliness to Randall of Nazareth that the song 'Ballad Of A Sorry, Lonely, Breaking Man,' (with the lyric couplet 'my closest friend and I can't bear to hear your name/I should pack my things and go back from where I came') doesn't begin to touch. Randall of Nazareth sees the world from the bottom of a glass, with the floor falling away to expose an underworld of aching soul. Gritty, arid, timeless... this is music that evokes squalor with elegance, evoking midnight at noon with all mysteries intact and growing quietly more intense with the years. Randall of Nazareth is Randy of Pearls and Brass."
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