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Group’s 7th Album Provides Perfect Soundtrack for a Fall Afternoon
www.andyhawk.com

Much like the leaves turning every October, it seems that recently we can count on a yearly new release from Andy Hawk & The Train Wreck Endings, and we can also count on the quality of the batch of songs they deliver.

The latest offering – Another Storyline – is chock-full of styles and vibes that branch out from the band’s Americana roots without losing the collective essence of the project. It’s not as raucous an album as last year’s Another Roadside Attraction, but that’s quite all right, since Hawk’s songwriting seems to take a chunk of new territory each time out.

This is an album to accompany you on a walk through the neighborhood on a sun-drenched, crisp fall afternoon as you chat up the locals and soak in the everyday beauty of an eccentric hometown block.

“Baltimore” opens the jaunt with a driving pop drumbeat from Chris Huff and some brilliant 12-string acoustic guitar work from Steve DeVries. “I like to hear you walking on those city streets / makes me feel less alone” could be the album’s mantra: the bonds and comfort of community and familiarity.

From there, we move into the straight blues of “Been Down So Long”, and then right into the title track, which introduces us to characters like Miss Maxine, Brother Muir, and Jimmy Carr in a wistful stroll down the block.

Bassist Chuck Bordelon pulls double duty here, adding a guitar solo reminiscent of Rubber Soul-era Beatles. DeVries’ squeeze box accentuates the fragility of the track: “Leaves will fall and faces fade / and days, they run and run away…”

“Allegheny River” comes next, and its sadness turns to hopefulness. Written with Ben Keay and based on Keay’s second novel, Dire Requisite, it’s set to accompany the digital copy of the book when it’s released next year. Shane Borders’ slide acoustic guitar and haunting Roger Waters-esque backing vocals make the track come alive.

An Americana cover of “Temptation” follows. It’s a 1982 song by new wave band New Order (Hawk remembered Pittsburgh’s The Affordable Floors doing a rocked-out version of this in the late-‘80s and added it to his live shows – it fit so well that they decided to record it for the album).

The dirty minor-key blues of “Mason-Dixon Line” give way to the beautiful “Prettier Song”, highlighted by the exquisite piano by Austin session pro Riley Osbourne. Hawk’s voice is hushed and raspy and makes you believe what he’s singing: “If I had a prettier song / then maybe I could be with you…”

The kick-drum driven “Sunshine Street” gets us stomping and clapping, and pulls us out of the doldrums, and the little guitar/banjo ditty “Kick a Stone & Join the Dance” has us almost skipping down the same street.

Hawk memorializes a friend whose overdose rocked him last winter with the eerie “Icicle in the Sun”, which utilizes the accordion to perfect effect again.

Not wanting to end on a downer, the band goes out with the 6/8-time “Random Thoughts”, featuring Hawk’s recorded ukulele debut and another fine solo by Bordelon, and the bluesy “Lost My Radio” – co-written with DeVries – a matter-of-fact telling of a lost radio that appears to have been thrown out the window by the narrator’s (ex?)girlfriend. This final track sounds like a 1930s Mississippi blues hootenanny on someone’s back porch, record-scratch sounds included.

Add a top-notch mixing and production job by former Loggins & Messina drummer Merel Bregante, and the mastering of the legendary Jerry Tubb, who’s worked with all the heavyweights, it seems, and you have an organic-sounding set of songs that stands up among the finest in Hawk’s extensive catalog.

Simply put, this is a terrific album by a veteran songwriter and band that deserves a much wider audience than they have. It’s available on iTunes, Amazon, and at cdbaby.com, among others.

- By Jason Miller

About the Author: Jason Miller is a teacher by day and a music lover/reviewer by night. This is his first attempt at a review, and he’s hoping to do independent stories and reviews from the Northern Virginia music scene from now on.