Ben Glover - Atlantic (2014)

Tracklist

01. This World Is a Dangerous Place
02. Oh Soul
03. Too Long Gone
04. True Love's Breaking My Heart
05. Prisoner
06. Blackbirds (feat. Gretchen Peters)
07. The Mississippi Turns Blue
08. Take and Pay
09. How Much Longer Can We Bend?
10. Sing a Song Boys
11. New Years Day


When an album starts with a song titled “This World Is a Dangerous Place”, it’s hard to know whether that’s a dire warning or a mere observation. In the case of Ben Glover’s Atlantic, it’s a bit of both. The tune goes on to sketch out details of life that are not so thoroughly drawn as to block either interpretation or interpolation. The listener can still inject herself into the specifically vague scene, whether as participant or witness, and come out the other side all the better for it.

Not so for “Oh Soul”, wherein Glover summons his inner tent revival preacher man. This is a hymn for the 21st century that makes you want to throw your hands in the air and ask for forgiveness even if you don’t necessarily need it. Here, redemption awaits in the cleansing waters of the river, if not in the chorus of the song or the hallowed memory of Robert Johnson that Glover invokes. Johnson’s ghost, along with the dirty grit of the South, also infuses the bluesy rock strains of “Too Long Gone”. This is pure, unadulterated Americana as done up by an Irishman. And he’s really just hitting his stride.

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