Reviews

Greazy Alice
Album: As Time Goes By
Label: Loose
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.greazyalice.bandcamp.com/

Named after a character in Terry Allen's 1975 song cycle Juarez, Greazy Alice is the musical vehicle for Alex Pianovich, born in Pennsylvania but based in New Orleans, the current line-up entailing himself on piano and guitars and singer Jo Morris as the core with Will Repholz on bass and Lee Garcia on drums.

It's piano notes that open the album with the easy rolling 'Circles', one of six from their two previous EPs, and, inspired by an altar put together in a bar in memory of a regular, its reflections on the cycles of life, loss and remembrance ("We are endlessly embracing/That The first of five previously unreleased tracks, the laid back loping 'Green' with its bluesy guitar and jazzy piano again hits a reflective note ("Me and my buddy Jake/Used to go out fishing/In the bald eagle mountains/83 degrees on the 4th of July/Getting high and telling lies/And in my memories it seemed/As if the whole world had been green") as he sings "I wonder what happened to all my friends".

Inspired by a scene from 'Casablanca', the anti-romance title track from the 'Just Another One' debut EP opens with spoken word, Pianovich declaring "I feel like a spent cigarette/Snuffed out on the windowsill/By the last awake between a pair/Of new lovers in some stifling attic apartment somewhere off the Broad Street line/Or in Boston or Brooklyn anywhere like that is fine for the sake of this simile"), the song opening to include Morris harmonising on the intermittent sung verses, concluding with an analysis of the aforementioned scene as he muses "As time goes by/I understand why Bogart let her get on that plane without him/It wasn't some act of self-sacrifice for the French resistance or anything noble and brave like that/It was an act of cowardice and fear in the face of the overwhelming power of true love/He let the dream die and ran off to dim his light drinking gin with the boys and I really can't blame him. I really get it. It makes sense to me".

The second from 'Circles' is the warm and folksy Americana of 'Glen Echo Cardinals', inspired by a moment of ennui during an early morning walk in Nashville, seeing a pair of cardinals flying and musing on life's solitary moments and not letting them overwhelm ("Don't you let those thoughts turn black/Or you'll start slipping back"), the song slipping into a note many will identify with ("How come I'm getting phone calls from collectors saying that I owe for things I did and didn't know?/I'll slam the phone down just to show/Try all you'd care you cannot bleed a stone").

The third, the duetted mid-tempo honky tonk 'Last Beer From The Fridge' is another musing on fleeting time and making the most of life ("Pour it in a frosted glass/Drink it slow, try and make it last/Over your lips it will pass/A mirage in the summer wind") and about avoiding awkward relationship confrontations ("Feeling pathetic/For using magnetic tape/To say what I couldn't say/Or even worse I could send a friend/To tell you I've fallen down the well again"), complete with a reference to Bob Seger's 'Night Moves'.

Another new number, 'Firefly' takes on an old fashioned crooner waltz arrangement with a fingerpicked bluesy solo and yet another lyric about being weighed down ("my memories are a heavy suitcase/To haul from place to place") and seeking escape ("It's best to travel light through the night").

Opening with discordant piano notes and wind chimes, 'Turn' strums its way through a road trip back to New Orleans and thoughts of getting older ("bet there's peace in learning to be happy as a has been"), taking in Renovo, Indiana and Louisiana, stopping off at a diner for "some ham and eggs and hash browns" ("Each place will have the same exact menu from Stroudsburg all the way to Youngstown"), conjuring memories and images of the changing landscape and seasons as leaves turn "Slowly o soil/Like he dinosaurs turned to oil/And natural gas for the men to frack…see those flames fly in the distance/Coming up from deep wells" as memories again flood back ("I remember the stories your daddy would tell/Bout how they'd go down to the river/And come home soaking wet/Mom'ld say ya can't come inside yet/Better dry off before the sun does set").

The remaining two from the debut EP line up as, first, 'Departures', a simple strummed number in a folk troubadours vein that speaks of change and transitioning and plays as another trip, here by plane to Austin to hook up with "an old friend who knows/Every fatal flaw I've carried for so long/Drinking margaritas and singing our auld songs/Smiling and laughing at all that we've got wrong/Saying 'lord let me get it right tomorrow'".

The other is the trot along rhythm cowboy campfire feel of 'Stop Asking Why' which, as the title suggests, is about not feeling you have to question everything and sometimes just accept what's there on faith ("Stop asking why/Leaves change…if your Angel appeared/Wouldyou know her at first sight?/Would you turn down your birthright?/Send her back behind the curtain"), a carpe diem message to put aside prevarication because "Bells crack, time passes by".

The two remaining cuts are both new, 'West' the album's rockabilly offering with its Jerry Lee piano break and images of rolling wagons and pioneer pilgrims making that voyage into the unknown from whose "cracked lips rose hopeful song" and his own prayer of "Lord let me make Las Cruces before the sun goes down". It ends with the enigmatic old timey gospel toned piano ballad 'Crosstie', the title referring to the rectangular support for railroad tracks the rails that hold them upright, which carries a sense of foreboding ("those war birds they're flying/Like they know just what's coming/Despite the air conditioner humming/I can still hear them scream") as he sings "Lay a stone on the crosstie/Say a prayer for the traveler/On that train bound for somewhere/Like the past is still breathing". A very welcome new name on the Americana scene, while greasy can be slang for something shady, it can also mean impressive or stylish. I'm going with the latter.

Mike Davies

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