{"id":803,"date":"2012-06-13T05:26:10","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T10:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=803"},"modified":"2023-08-08T13:06:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T17:06:16","slug":"album-review-dan-kibler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/06\/13\/album-review-dan-kibler\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Dan Kibler"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will readily admit that alt-country doesn’t rank among my favorite musical genres. I respect it, sure, but in general, it gives me no particular pleasure. I’m more of a rock guy. But \u2013 as with nearly every style of music \u2013 there exist artists who somehow transcend their style (for me, anyway) and produce something with which I can connect emotionally. And on occasion, the music of that artist will, over time, provide a musical doorway of sorts into a heretofore unappreciated style of music.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if Dan Kibler<\/strong>‘s new album (conveniently titled Dan Kibler<\/em>) will lead me to the twangier side of the tracks, but his album is a winner, no matter how you classify it. From the opening riff of \u201cThe Misunderstood,\u201d it’s clear that Kibler weds a breezy, dusty-road sort of twang-rock to a powerpop sensibility. Think of Tom Petty<\/strong>, Bill Lloyd<\/strong> and early BoDeans<\/strong>, and you\u2019ll have an idea of the sort of music Kibler creates. Memorable hooks, straightforward, out-front vocals, and an emotional point of view that straddles world-weary and wry bemusement.<\/p>\n

The country tradition of story-songs is successful for good reason; listeners like to connect with characters in musical stories, especially if there’s something about those characters that resonates. If they’re well-drawn, listeners can relate. And Kibler excels at this approach: \u201cWhen Johnny Comes home\u201d is a fine example. While it doesn’t rock as hard as, say, a Jason and the Scorchers<\/strong><\/a> tune, the song makes up for it with subtlety and strong vocal harmonies. And Kibler wisely under-develops the characters, leaving listeners space to fill in the blanks, thus making the character more their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother Day\u201d may be a shopworn title for a song, but Kibler’s take on it \u2013 complete with lovely pedal steel courtesy of Sal Saunders<\/strong> \u2013 evokes pleasant memories of Long Ryders<\/strong><\/a> in their prime. \u201cBroken Bent and Bound\u201d employs some sly guitar figures from the Byrds<\/strong>\/George Harrison<\/strong><\/a> school, and applies them to a driving, windswept melody with big, twangy cowboy electric guitar riffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome Back\u201d takes a left turn from the country styles, kicking off with a backward guitar intro. But then it settles into a midtempo style with plaintive lyrics. Tony Melchiorre<\/strong>‘s 60s-psych flavored drum fill leads into a simple, tasteful\/tasty guitar solo from John Fritchey<\/strong>. (It’s not credited on the album, but I am pretty sure I hear some nice fiddle work buried in the mix.)<\/p>\n

Like all of the songs on Dan Kibler<\/em>, \u201c45 Seconds More\u201d benefits from its memorable melody; it’s also the least country-flavored track on the set. The waltzing rock of \u201cJealousy\u201d comes with a parental advisory, but don’t worry: Kibler’s no 2 Live Crew<\/strong>, and his brief four-letter lyrical excursions make sense in the song’s context.<\/p>\n

Kibler and band turn up the twang \u2013 and even mention train whistles \u2013 on the lovely, loping \u201cIs it True.\u201d The fetching chorus is the track’s highlight. \u201cI Can’t Make Up My Mind\u201d is another stylistic departure: it opens with stacked vocal harmonies and then shifts into a riffy rocker not miles from The Smithereens<\/strong><\/a>. It’s worth noting that Kibler has always<\/em> drawn from whatever stylistic bag made sense to him: back in the late 90s he contributed an ace cover of \u201cTrains and Boats and Planes\u201d to the tribute album What the world Needs Now: Songs of Burt Bacharach<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Power pop with twang \u2013 reminiscent of Spain-by-way-of-Virginia group The Mockers<\/strong> \u2013 is on display in \u201cNever Good News,\u201d and again the vocal harmonies and lead guitar are icing on the cake. The trilling piano figure that anchors \u201cRock’n’Roll Rome\u201d calls to mind Bruce Springsteen<\/strong>. But the slide guitar (especially on the soaring solo) moves the feel closer to Old 97s<\/strong>, and the end result is a song with its own distinctive, winning personality. The record closes with the breezy \u201cFrak Day Comer,\u201d a number reminiscent of Harry Nilsson<\/strong><\/a> and other wide-appeal 70s artists.<\/p>\n

And that wide appeal is, in the end, the hallmark of this entire record. Dan Kibler<\/em> is that rarest of albums: one that rock fans who don’t really like country \u2013 as well as country fans who don’t dig the rock \u2013 can both enjoy, and even treasure. A winner.<\/p>\n

Important Note:<\/strong> While Dan Kibler<\/em> is available from most of the usual outlets, a special bonus disc titled What’ll It Be: A Dan Kibler Mixtape<\/em> is available only <\/em>when you buy the record from Kool Kat Muzik’s online store<\/a>. The bonus disc is a nine-track career retrospective put together by Kibler himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will readily admit that alt-country doesn’t rank among my favorite musical genres. I respect it, sure, but in general, it gives me no particular pleasure. I’m more of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","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=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25794,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions\/25794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}