{"id":25494,"date":"2023-06-18T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2023-06-18T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25494"},"modified":"2023-06-19T11:55:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T15:55:22","slug":"album-review-selwyn-birchwood-exorcist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/18\/album-review-selwyn-birchwood-exorcist\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Selwyn Birchwood &#8212; Exorcist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25495\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/selwyn_birchwood_exorcist.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/selwyn_birchwood_exorcist.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/selwyn_birchwood_exorcist-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/selwyn_birchwood_exorcist-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>I\u2019ve written about Selwyn Birchwood on a number of occasions. Back when I was writing my \u201c30 Days Out\u201d column for Asheville\u2019s altweekly (for a few years now it\u2019s been a Musoscribe feature), I previewed one of his local gigs. I often described him using words like \u201cyoung\u201d and phrases like \u201cup and coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All that is in the past now. Birchwood gained the high profile his work deserved, and today he\u2019s a well-known and widely acclaimed artist. A searing blues guitarist, he has a powerful voice and a talent for sharp songwriting. As he heads toward his 40<sup>th<\/sup> birthday (not quite yet: March 2025), Birchwood is no longer neither young nor especially new. And the Award-winning guitarist returned June 9 with <i>Exorcist<\/i>, his sixth and newest album.<\/p>\n<p>Despite its title, <i>Exorcist<\/i> isn\u2019t an overall dark collection of songs. True, the title track is a story of love gone very wrong, but the topical (and occasionally humorous) tracks \u201cFlorida Man\u201d and \u201cSwim at Your won Risk\u201d deal with subject matter well outside customary blues fare.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFlorida Man\u201d is worth singling out as a standout tune. All manner of faux news headline snippets are woven into the arrangement, and Birchwood\u2019s wry take on the state where \u201crebel flags meet Mickey Mouse\u201d makes for a fun listen. Searing guitar work only adds to the enjoyment. The surprising \u201cShow Tune\u201d that closes the album feels more like classic Stax soul than anything else. The instrumental raver is a testament to the wide-ranging approach to music that characterizes Selwyn Birchwood.<\/p>\n<p>The rote I-IV-V structure of classic blues has served many artists well, and while Birchwood\u2019s no stranger to that approach, he doesn\u2019t allow himself to be boxed in by it. The songs have blues attitude and rock power, but they don\u2019t lend themselves easily to strict categorization. That fact is one of Birchwood\u2019s strengths, and should serve him well as his continues his auspicious musical journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve written about Selwyn Birchwood on a number of occasions. Back when I was writing my \u201c30 Days Out\u201d column for Asheville\u2019s altweekly (for a few years now it\u2019s been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[3136],"class_list":["post-25494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-selwyn-birchwood","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25494","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=25494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25496,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25494\/revisions\/25496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}