Chris Laterzo
Album: West Coast Sound
Label: Yampa
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.chrislaterzo.com

The fifth album West Coast Sound (follow-up to 2009's Juniper and Pinon) from Los Angeles based Chris Laterzo is a short eight tracks but there's no shortage of quality with descriptive song-writing and country rock sounds at their best. Backing comes from his regular band mates Buffalo Robe which features Jeff LeGore (bass and background vocals), Dan Wistrom (electric/acoustic guitar, pedal steel and background vocals), Ron Pak (drums) and of course Chris (lead vocals, acoustic/electric guitar and harmonica).

Chris's vocal and the sound on many of his songs takes me back to the emergence of country rock with smatterings of folk in the late 1960's and early 1970's. I can't help but think of a cross between Jackson Browne, Neil Young and The Eagles but there is also an intoxicating individual sound.

The way the lyrics flow is deceptively effortless by describing the subjects that usually involve the California and Los Angeles landscapes and is engrossing to the extent that you feel you are at the centre of the picture being drawn and the story being told. The title track and 'Tumbleweed' are great examples where the former is a recollection or a dream of being in the ocean, on the beach and on desert lands and the latter of travelling inland using the scenery such as tumbleweeds in describing the journey travelled. An example of Chris's fine song-writing abilities can be seen in the opening part of Drag "What a drag to see all the love That you've poured from your heart Disappear like the rain falling on the desert floor" as he describes the need to end a dying relationship.

There are more descriptive lyrics of possibly familiar places in 'Echo Park' and even a Neil Young name check. It is quite uncanny how Chris's vocal style is very close to that of Neil's throughout. It is clear that imagery plays a key part in Chris's songs be it on a reminiscent or an imaginative level, where the listener cannot help but be transported to these places. In fact this is one of my favourite tracks with some delicious pedal steel and harmonica.

Many of the songs are sung in the customary laid back way but things are a lot more rockier on 'Subaru' in a slightly tongue in cheek way in categorising certain materialistic people for the places they live and the things they own like a certain type of car. 'The Ray Bradbury' takes the listener on a fantasy journey that he and a friend follow in search of a different faraway place. Are they trying to escape the laid back monotony of life on earth? It appears this way when there's a suggestion of heading on a rocket to Mars.

The final track is about yet another journey and memories of possibly an affair and running away together with the suggestion that one can be their 'Chaperone'. This final track is as dreamy and laid-back as they get with a gentle acoustic guitar and drum beat throughout. You cannot help but become engrossed in these tracks and the more you listen to each one the more you get from them. A thoroughly captivating album from start to finish from a somehow underrated artist with songs as good as the Young's and Browne's of this World.

Craig Parry