Raw. Honest. The truth. Primitive. Rebellious. The truth. Dry. In your face.
It’s always refreshing to hear production values that honor the artist, the poet, the songwriter and not the current trends, the producer, the studio, the music gadget business, and so on. Touché, Rob Lamothe. Two Suns tells several tales of teen angst over broken love affairs, corporate greed, selling out, and buying in. I am a child of the 60s and the guitar tones, the dry, in-your-face vocals and honest delivery harkens back to the garage bands of the summer of love…and protest…and a new paradigm shift in social consciousness.
“Trash day was yesterday, you’re still here, what went wrong.” I love that. Like an ancestral hippie that jumped up out of the overly-fracked ground it reminds us that we still have such a long way to go. As a lead vocalist, Marty Issacs is no Adam Levine or John Mayer. But neither was Lou Reed nor Bob Dylan. This is a true poetic artist who is not trying to sell you on slick or trick. I hear you, Marty. I see you. I know you mean what you say and have lived it. Your vocal performances are as clear and concise as your wonderfully clear guitar tones. Nice to hear the instrument for a change rather than being sucked through some awful digital floor pedal. Honest. Nia:weh.
Great bass playing from Ryan Johnson, the rock of The Ollivanders, and spirited drumming from Ryan Mickeloff makes this band stand out as a great throwback to when guitar trios ruled the world. No machines, no samplers and no loops. Just good, honest playing, well…like the band I play with. I can relate. I hear Tom Petty, Green Day and Buffalo Springfield influences in there. But also an original sound brought about by young men of mixed cultures coming together to beat the drum and cry out from their hearts and tell the stories for us to share with them.
This CD will be in my car for a while. In the meantime, it’s “Time to live it up while I’m still free…rain or shine.”
Kenny Lee Lewis has been a writer, producer, guitarist, bassist, and vocalist for The Steve Miller band of over 34 years. He has a drop of Mohawk and Cherokee blood and is not afraid to use it.
