Reluctant Saints "Long Drive" Album Review
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PRLog - Global Press Release Distribution Reluctant Saints "Long Drive" Album Review Should you buy this album? With a quickness. "How will Reluctant Saints be Live? Phenomenal! Do not miss a live concert or show from these guys, and ladies--when you hear Brian Cameron sing live, he'll buckle your knees like a cheap lawn chair. Jan. 4, 2011 - PRLog -- Tuesday, 04 January 2011 03:57 Written by Giuseppe Colato The long awaited, highly anticipated album "Long Drive" from Atlanta, Georgia's Reluctant Saints is finally here-and well worth the wait! A Song by Song Tour of "Long Drive": 1-Blue Ridge Baby--(written by Brian Cameron) My Take; "Blue Ridge Baby" comes right out of the gate with a lead guitar solo that blends right into the funk/country/rock/pop groove of the song. Then comes Brian Cameron laying down funky-soulful vocals about a girl that "is everything to him." The song is about getting back to your girl--your perfect girl, and nothing will stop you from getting back to her. The song then breaks into a short and sweet guitar solo that blends right back into the song's groove. Rock solid drums, sweetly layed down keys and a bass line that never stops groovin. This song is one of those songs that can make it on many a different chart--so much so, it makes you want this "Blue Ridge Baby" that the song is about. This will end up one of the most popular songs off of this album. It just has that "it." 2-Shine On Me--(written by Brian Cameron) My Take: This song comes right out of the gate with some sweet slide guitar that brings in the pop/county groove. Brian Cameron is predicting the future as he's talking to a shy girl that "he hasn't got yet." But he pledges to her that he'll openly communicate with her and be the man that she deserves. This great story became a great song. The slide guitar comes and goes at just the right moments, and the rest of the band is right there keeping that country/pop-rock country club dance floor movin groove right where it needs to be. 3-Long Drive--(written by Brian Cameron and Andrew Black) My Take: The album's self-titled song is a duet about a guy going all the way out to L.A. from Atlanta to see his girl and get her back. When she answers the door in a towel (as a strange voice asks her, "Hey baby, who's that at the door?" he tells her all the things that he's been through since she left, what he's been missing and all about the journey out to L.A. to go and get her back. He wins her heart back, and she tells him "let's fly back home" instead of tackling that "Long Drive." In this song you hear some of that "Brian Cameron soul" and his vocal counterpart, Shana Alverson, comes into the song with sheer perfection. This is one of those songs that makes you want more just like it. Great story, great singing and solid music behind the whole thing. 4-Down In Nowhere--(written by Brian Cameron, Brooks Wilson, Brent Wilson) My Take: This song is one of those sweet songs that steals your heart, your Mom's heart, your girl's heart--and everyone else's, too. It's a story about a guy chasing his dreams. He gets all that he wanted out of life--or so he thought. One day he just "gets it"--he gets what's really important in life. This is that story, and it's as sweet as it can be. It has a sad-ish vibe to it, but in a good way. It ends on a great positive note. This is one of those songs that you'll be listening to for years and years and years--and still loving it more than ever. It has a nice lead guitar part toward the end that leads right into a moment of Mark Wilson vocal bliss. This song will be on the radio for sure. 5-Song To Remember--(written by Nathan Morgan) My Take: This is a rock-solid rock/funk groove that can hang with anything from the yester-years of the 1970's. It's straight up in-your-face old school Southern Page 1/3 PRLog - Global Press Release Distribution Rock in its finest hour. It's a serious funk/blues/southern rock anthem type of song that I can't get enough of personally, and I can't seem to ever have it quite loud enough either (although my neighbors would probably disagree). Searing guitar solos, funk drums to die for and keys that will make you smile from ear to ear as you remember back to a time when you used to hear those type of keyboard sounds all the time in "the good ol' music" that you were brought up on. This song WILL remind you of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and it does it effortlessly without trying to get "their sound." It's more of a you-can-tell-what-inspires-Nathan-Morgan-when-he-writes-music kind of song. Eventually this song leads into a picked up pace funk/swing groove that grabs you and refuses to let you go while it forces you to move your foot, feet or rock your entire body. All the while searing guitar solos are coming and going--and they brought their keys along with them. If Lynyrd Skynyrd was alive and recording today-this is the sound that they would be putting out, and they'd bring a few friends in the studio with them, too. 6-I'll Miss You When I'm Broke--(written by Jon Cole) My Take: "My favorite song 'title' on this album." It'a slow bluesy type of slow dance song, and it's deep. Jon Cole sings lead on this track, and boy does he ever! This song is so good I'll bet pretty much anything it ends up in a movie sound track or as a TV show theme song, or the backing song to a season-ending very dramatic episode. These guys do slow and deep with authority. Once again, guitar solos that are perfect for the places that they come and go in. Once again they seem to have captured that 70's and 80's sound, that slow and real deep rock groove that moved us deeper than anything else. If you were to combine Journey, Kiss, Rare Earth and a little dose of very early Deep Purple and gave them a shot of real soft and slow Southern Rock/Blues, this is what you'd get. 7-Descending--(written by Brian Cameron and Andrew Black) My Take: From the very first note this song is slow and deep--yet swingin' along with a real cool pace that's not too slow or too fast. Brian Cameron's vocals sound like a lot of songs that you love on this track. It's utterly amazing how these guys get these screaming/searing guitar solos into a slow song and pull it off with perfection--reminding me of one of the most underrated guitarists in rock and roll: Neal Schon. Great rhythm guitar woven in and out, too! This song also brings a sweet, soothing-yet-festive sax into the equation! It wanders into a 'world-sound' vibe for a moment, and then combines that with the original flavor of the song that builds up into a killer Sade' type of song feel. It's a little hard to describe, but it works, all of it. I guarantee you the last note of the song will leave you wanting more, guaranteed. 8-Right Behind You--(written by Brian Cameron) My Take: This is a crowd pleasing groove that I can see catching on, and doing so across many music genres and continents. Once again Brian Cameron adds his soulful flavor to the vocals of an almost perfect pop-rock be-bop groove, and then in steps Davin McCoy to carry the vocal torch the rest of the way. This is one heck of a catchy tune! I can see groups of college kids all over the world bopping and singing along with this song--to the point of people breaking out into song in the middle of malls like they do these days. And the more I listen to it, the more I think that, too. Note to said college kids: replace all keyboard parts with whistling. 9-Free--(written by Brian Cameron and David Clemens) My Take: This starts out with a very early 70's acoustic sound--a little bit reminiscent of The Who's 'Pinball Wizard' that changes into a funky-almost swing flavor that's different from anything I've heard recently, but really good, really solid and really catchy. Brian Cameron leads the way on this musical journey that boasts all about him being "Free," and the rest of the Reluctant Saints are right there with him. This song has a little Neal Schon/Journey flavor to it, and it's all good. This is one of those songs, when they play it live for a huge audience, the crowd will all be singing along with them, and they'll all be as happy as they can be. Read the FULL Press release at http://www.dirtysouthtv.com/music-news/album-reviews/135-..