{"id":15002,"date":"2018-08-04T05:45:51","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T09:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15002"},"modified":"2018-08-01T17:01:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T21:01:53","slug":"album-review-pale-blue-dot-anatomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/04\/album-review-pale-blue-dot-anatomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Pale Blue Dot &#8212; Anatomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-15003\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/pale_blue_dot2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/pale_blue_dot2.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/pale_blue_dot2-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/pale_blue_dot2-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>From a music standpoint, Charlottesville, Virginia is perhaps best known for the jam-band hero Dave Matthews (who\u2019s South African, but is associated with the city). Appalachian music plays a part in the city\u2019s scene as well. So Pale Blue Dot is something of an anomaly. Hard-driving melodic rock and concise songwriting are the hallmarks of the group. Soaring tunes are the specialty of leader Tony LaRocco, and on Anatomy, the band\u2019s debut full length (there was an EP in 2016, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/07\/hundred-word-reviews-for-july-16-part-4\/\">reviewed here<\/a>), he delivers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI Know\u201d sounds like a single in the vein of vaguely alternative \u201890s rock. \u201cOnly Love\u201d sounds like a cross between The Cure\u2019s \u201cIn Between Days\u201d and John Mellencamp, if you can imagine such a thing. Oddly, it works. <i>Anatomy<\/i> is a varied set of songs, unified around a rock aesthetic. LaRocca\u2019s raspy yet supple vocals are the mortar that holds the bricks (songs) together as a cohesive album.<\/p>\n<p>The instrumentation is taut and expressive, but for the most part the musicians \u2013 LaRocca on guitar plus Peter Balogh on guitar, bassist Drew Pompano and drummer Darby Wooten \u2013 never call attention to themselves, instead letting the songs be the focus. Story-songs like \u201cThe Harlot and the Gambler\u201d take awhile to unfold, but that simmering slow burn approach is an effective technique. \u201cLo and Behold\u201d subtly makes use of mandolin and pedal steel; it\u2019s slightly out-of-place on this album, but in the end the song\u2019s quality \u2014 and one of LaRocca\u2019s strongest vocal turns \u2014 justifies its inclusion. (A brief unlisted, unnamed one-chord instrumental coda closes the album.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From a music standpoint, Charlottesville, Virginia is perhaps best known for the jam-band hero Dave Matthews (who\u2019s South African, but is associated with the city). Appalachian music plays a part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,51,62,65],"tags":[3520],"class_list":["post-15002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-pale-blue-dot","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15005,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15002\/revisions\/15005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}