James Apollo – Good Grief (Aquarium Records).

James Apollo is described as a Tumbleweed, a hapless dreamer and a purveyor of roots eccentricity. Good Grief is 13 original tracks that show why. Currently living in Minneapolis, he has resided in California, Arkansas and Tennessee and has soaked up musical influences from them all. The album starts with the instrumental Prelude, Colonel Travis which is full of Mexican influence and, as the title infers, Alamo references. This theme continues on to The Alamo, a very slow alt.country song that has Apollo making his last stand – “Call me an Alamo”. This is lyrically clever and musically powerful. The alt. country vibe continues with Spring Storm whose jaunty delivery with accordions and banjos gives it a Bohemian feel. Dead Men Weigh More Than Broken Hearts wins the best title of the year so far award and its slow, pondering Americana makes for relaxing listening. Apollo has a whispering quality to his voice at times and Libertyville is a case in point. He lays his soft vocal over layers of Bert Weedon/Duane Eddy guitars all on top of an acoustic backdrop. The sparse, haunting Long Rope follows this and he returns to Bohemia for the strong and powerful Mercenary Tango.

The short Neko is weaker than most of the album but Loneliness is just the business. This slow, somber style is just right up his street. It’s very difficult to fit Apollo into any one category and that’s no bad thing. The highlight of the album is the very classy Three Birds. He could do almost anything with this song with its funky bass and he could quite easily turn out to be a male K.T. Tunstall. Slow Burn is quite ironic as it is probably the fastest track on offer. It starts off in a New Orleans funereal style but builds very quickly. He returns to his favoured slow pace on All The Pretty, again with the New Orleans feel. Slide guitar and harmonium are the stars here. Apollo finishes strongly with the eponymous title track and he keeps up the originality to the end. He doesn’t do the regular beats and he is an imaginative artist in so many ways. This will grow on you.

http://www.aquariumrecords.com/

Copyright David Blue 2006.