Last Of The Better Days Ahead
by Charlie Parr

From Mercury 09/23/2021 06:50 | #274075

(Best acoustic blues album I've heard this year... not a stacked field, admittedly. Still, this is quite good.)

Pretty clear that is right up my alley. Its country blues/deep blues with a modern touch in lyrical content. It jumps in style from a more Mississippi sounding slide guitar blues sound to a somewhat jumpy, fleet-fingered Piedmont blues style, to a more contemporary folk/songster narrative sound at times. All this with a pretty damn fine acoustic blues guitar keeping the recordings beautiful in their austerity. And with a voice somewhat varied as well, with Charlie sounding like sad Ryan Adams/Jason Molina one track to somewhat strange, mischievous Will Oldham the next.

The songwriting is hit-or-miss, lyrically and songcraft-wise. At times I will hear a biting and beautifully simple observation. Maybe a bit too often the observations are just plain banal and uninteresting to me. And sometimes there is a beautiful guitar lick or sound that keeps the songs fascinating and even mesmerizing and hypnotic as only that deep earthy blues manages to be (for me anyway). But, again, as this is also hit-or-miss, there are tracks that don't move with any momentum or any specific extra something to keep my ears locked in. Still, this is certainly a good and vibrant and earthy blues album and Charlie Parr is a fascinating personality who seems to get better with age. Despite my occasional gripes about the songwriting, this is still the best (s far as I can remember without going through the list and checking) purely acoustic, grounded blues or folk album this year.

It's a pleasure just re-acquainting myself with one of my oldest loves musically, that being deep blues. This is a fascinating album and outside of the wasted 15 minute jam that seems to be just to pad the album's length and made to bore me (I'm sure this epic would grow on me if I gave it more listens) this is a consistent and trim affair. While Parr isn't quite up to the task of matching those greats that influenced him (Blind Willie Mctell, Mississippi Fred McTell, John Hurt etc) he does do a fine job cutting out a niche in my musical listening for the year and he made a damn fine album here.