Reviews

Artist:The Glass Hours
Album: The Glass Hours
Label: Cornelius Chapel
Tracks: 9
Website: https://www.theglasshours.com/

Based in the Hudson Valley, comprising Brad Armstrong and Megan Barbera with guest fiddle courtesy Sue Wescott, this is the duo's debut album and one which firmly sets them on an Americana path country folk previously trod by the likes of Gram, Lucinda and Emmylou. After a fiddle and garbled spoken intro, they set the standard from the get go with Armstrong's vocal burr and Barbera's twang alternating lead on the he and her narrative pedal steel streaked 'Hurricane' ("she hadda rattlesnake boots/holes in her jeans and a broken tooth/she come a long way/riding her thumb every night and day… he had a stick and poke tattoo/hole in his heart like an empty room/he come a long way/walkin the road every night and day") coming together on the refrain "wanna ride it till the wheels come off/ride it till it throws me off". There's a desert night reverb guitar anchoring the slow shambling 'Same Old You" where, her vocals to the fore and he shadowing them, it sketches a musician's unfulfilled promise and dreams ("me and the boys had a rock and roll band/blew the doors off down in Birmingham/sleepin' out drunk under the stars/telling ourselves it'll be better tomorrow…so many nights, highways and dreams/held it together with amphetamines twenty-five years we gave it away/at the end of the song wasn't nothing to say").

Drums make their presence felt on 'Scarlet Tongues' which builds from a folksy fingerpicked intro grow the sound, Barbera this time complementing Armstrong's lead on a song of restlessness, regret and yearning that, opening with the striking image of "nightfall in the city of a thousand scarlet tongues", interjects the "I make my way back home to you" refrain around lines like "I've seen a thousand empty bottles and I have yet to drink my fill", "I got canyons in my heartbeat and razors in my voice", "I've seen destruction in the neon lights rainin' on the strip" and "whatever I have planted may it wither in the sun".

Fiddle returns for 'Rattlesnake Springs' as Barbera takes whispery lead on a storysong set against an Old West pioneer days Oregon trail backdrop ("old prairie wagon kept the babies dry into the water swift and wide/to the hell that's waiting on the other side/I left my father in a crumbling home for the windswept acres of a dusty bowl/now the skies they open wide as we cross the great divide leaving all we had behind"). She's also lead on 'Sing My Song' with its slow shuffle, spare chiming notes, reverb backing, muted walking beat drums and theme of emotional rescue ("would you call my name/if I called your bluff/would you be my good friend/when I wasn't good enough… could you hold the line when we were apart/maybe it's the right time to mend your broken heart"). Armstrong keeps it bruisingly melancholic on the simply strummed 'Far Enough Away', an old flames encounter ("hey I ain't seen you round in a long time/you been down in the sunny climes/you're lookin all right/hey the ocean seems to suit you fine/you're pretty when you're tellin' lies") with its brave face affability ("I want you to know that the sky is a zodiac/and everything's comin' back around/so hey, keep your chin pointed up in the morning light/don't you wait around to say goodbye/just saddle up and ride") and encouragement in troubled times ("I want you to know that the stars shine bright on the down side of every life/I want you to know that the sky is a requiem and everything's gonna be alright").

A similar mood hangs over 'Covering Blue', where to a slow funeral march rhythm underpinned by organ, Barbera sings "can't seem to win for losin'/with nothin here to gain" and of "drownin' in the music and strayin' from the beat") and, referencing both 'California Dreaming' and 'You Were Always On Mind', music carries the weight of regret and loss ("searching for some meaning in the melodies we write/when the words have lost their meaning and your song begins to fade…the piano's tellin' stories/and the band is playin' on/just passing through these clouds inside of you").

The last to feature Westcott's fiddle, her alongside spectral banjo and bass drum thumps, 'Silver For Mine Eyes' has Armstrong going bluegrass gospel, albeit not with eyes cast on the promised land as the singer faces his death ("Everybody's singin' for Jesus Christ but I'm goin' down to Satan when I die…cotton for my windpipe and silver for mine eyes… cause I'm told the man is comin' with a long hangin' rope") and, after a Spaghetti Western guitar solo, adding to the darkness with "I seen our ghostly children in the sky/pale as basin water when they died".

It ends on a downbeat note too, more spectral guitar, keys and banjo notes weaving behind Barbera on 'Annie' and its relationship ("I'm the break you're the storm") that's reached the end of its road ("I'm lost and I'm leavin' it all behind/part of me feels like it's dyin'/both of us know that we tried/in the clouds I saw it comin'/it was written in the sky/couldn't find the words to tell you/til they poured out in these lines") with its searing line that the "trouble with lovin' is leavin' relics of happier times", and yet parting without bitterness ("when you wake up at dawn/with the colors of the sun may you shine like our early memories").

Founded on the individual experiences gained as writers and performers along the way, this easily earns his place as one of the year's most impressive debuts.

Mike Davies

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