Reviews
Artist:Pawn Shop Saints Album: Ride My Galaxy
Label: Dolly Rocker
Tracks: 12
Website: https://www.jebbarry.com
The Massachusetts outfit's follow up to Ordinary Folks finds frontman Jeb Barry in a particularly self-critical frame of mind, twice referring to himself - or at least the song narrators- as not being a good guy not to mention a son of a bitch. Be that as it may, grained with his wearied husky vocal and driven by acoustic, resonator and electric guitars, including contributions from surf punk legend Jimmy Blister, with Amy Attias on fiddle, it's another damn fine collection of alt-Americana, this time with a bigger drum sound and psych-influenced guitar sounds such as on opening track 'Chevy Nova (That 70s Song)', his contribution to the extensive catalogue of cars and girls songs, this a shuffling resonator twanged reminiscence of first love and how being "17 in the 70s, wasn't as cool as we thought it'd be". The first he's no good for you number, the bluesy groove driven by Alan Taylor's organ riff and echoey guitar, 'Stop Breaking Your Heart' warns some woman to cut her losses because "people only care about their own scars", followed in kindred spirit by the ennui-drenched slow 'I'll Be Missing You Again' with its raw acoustic guitar and keening slide where he owns up to it being his fault things fell apart ("I was always fighting some battle, not one of them was for you").
Anchored by bass drum, 'Outlaws' with its overlapping vocals was written with Ryan Bingham in mind and gently pokes fun at wannabe bad boys who fancy themselves as Bonnie and Clydes, dressing in black and fitting out their Honda Civics with fuck you exhausts like some kind of macho statement. Also on a note of misguided youth, but more a lament for lost innocence, 'Diane' in an acoustic power pop vein with chiming chord slide and, for trivia buffs, a namecheck for cult power pop outfit Material Issue ('Diane' being the title of one of their hits) in the first line, Barry going on to wonder "why this world is so mean" and offering himself up as the titular girl's saviour ("some day when I grow up, I'll be the one you love…I've got no friends, nothing to do, so I got plenty of time to bleed").
It's an album highlight, and is followed by another with the desperately sad down and lost scuffed shrug of 'Too Low For Tupelo', another outing for a psychedelic lead guitar break, telling a lost love he's not going to quit trying and that "I'm doing the best I can". A solo show favourite, the slow piano-backed 'Jenny Why' now makes it to album, the singer contrite about having messed things up and, while admitting "I wasn't that good of a man", saying she should have hung around to see just how sorry he was, rather than let three years go to waste.
Described as a cocktail of Wilco, the Stones and the Dead, 'Wicked', another "if I was a good man" track, is a slow psychedelic American slouch that sports the good advice "speak of the devil just don't let him hear", before, after some studio chatter, the acoustic jangling strum 'Exits', recorded solo live in the studio, sets out is thematic stall from the get go with the line "If life's a highway I'm just a wreck off the side of the road, I'm too lost to give a shit", adding "If I decided to disappear doubt I'd be missed" and how "I prayed so many nights all I got was busted knees".
'The Depression-era styled, death-themed 'Ain't No Mama Here' is reprised from the previous album, this time given a slow treatment with a fiddle solo that makes its darkness even more desolate, the album ending with 'Half Ton', a midtempo jogalong punk country strummer with a catchy singalong chorus that belies the misery of the lyrics ("After all the damage you've done to me I've got a half a ton of misery"), a splendid sign off to an album that may be a downbeat ride with a busted chassis, but which never fails to keep in top gear throughout.
Mike Davies
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