Glorytellers (Southern)
By Tim Bugbee
Friday. Apr 11, 2:26 PM
Ex-Karate leader gets quiet.

Geoff Farina's here to tell you the quiet stories, the stuff that gets lost in the ever-growing noise of daily life. He's got a sharp insight, and paints small vignettes of all-too human frailties, from the elevated life stress of having babies too soon ("Camouflage"), to comparing someone to a weak, stray dog, subsisting on scraps and whatever it can scavenge, too feeble to kill ("Exclusive Hurricanes"). It's all even-measured singing and playing; no peaks and valleys to be encountered. Geoff did his rock tenure in proto-emo band Karate, then turned down, first in The Secret Stars, and now as the creative force known as Glorytellers or as part of a greater whole (Empty House Cooperatives, which also features prominent fellow Bostonians such as Chris Brokaw, David Michael Curry, et al.). He's got an earnest straightforward voice, and the counterpoint of his droll vocals and cleanly finger-picked guitar is supplied by drummer Luther Gray, who plays along with the style of even-keeledness.

The straight 4/4 tempo and somewhat leaden delivery is taken by the lapels and shaken by "Quarantine," where Farina casually drops an F bomb between the stuttering, time-shifting rhythms and the closest thing to a blistering guitar solo you'll find here. Well, to be fair, "Anonymous" and "Trovato Suono" also gives the blues/jazz lines an airing, certainly signaling that Farina's a facile player when he wants to show it. That sort of energy soon dissipates into the languid "Blood on the Shine", and it kinda points to a flaw of the record... not enough memorable hooks (either vocal or melody line). Had there been more songs like" Anonymous" and "Quarantine," I think it would have strengthened the record. Not that I don't like somber acoustic sketches, but someone like Mark Eitzel, naked warts and all, is a more effective transmitter of this sort of social observation, probably because Eitzel's more self-reflective and gives you a more unflinching view into his own persona.
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Tim Bugbee

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