Music Review // Kris Heaton Band "My City of Gold"

https://open.spotify.com/album/2PVVNCxdwu2JM2IQ4E5eTZ 

There is an old saying that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and to that extent I feel like you shouldn't judge an album by one of its songs.   Without getting into too many specifics, I do feel as if the songs which were not on the radio are among the best on that self-titled Third Eye Blind album, for example, so you can't always base your opinion on a small piece of a larger picture.   This is true, for me, with "My City of Gold" as the first song- which happens to be the titular track, has a strong country feel to it.  

Country music has always been hit or miss for me and the way this album starts makes it feel like we're about to be in a beer commercial.  I don't mind this as the opening song but if the rest of the album had the same tone I wouldn't have found it as interesting.  But this just does go to show that if you based this album on the first song I wouldn't have liked it but I also wouldn't have been accurate.   The songs progress into various forms of rock, with leanings of gospel throughout.   They begin to cross over into the threshold of rock n roll over country and I do enjoy that because I always feel like this style of music is underrated.

With big guitars, "You Want It" has all of the energy of a song you might hear from a movie in the 1980's or 1990's, such as "Rocky" or "Better Off Dead".  It just makes me think of one of those montages used to get someone pumped up.   "Father Song" reminds me of Bruce Springsteen and once I hear that he becomes a theme on this album.  "Hole In The Sky" has a slight hint of blues while "Out On the Streets" just feels more somber, sadder.   "Raze Your Hands" is electric and seems to shift from the gospel and on "Lyfe is Good" the vocals do that distorted Peter Frampton thing.

Sometimes I can hear The Doors in these songs.   "Florida Heat" feels like what would happen if Pink Floyd were to cover "Paint It Black".    This whole album walks the fine line between being a trippy one which would leave you in the desert on drugs and one of just down-home Americana.   The songs tell stories like Neil Young and it just makes me miss how much times have changed where music just seems to go nowhere with lyrics or tell the same story repeatedly.   This album is for those who grew up listening to the radio, before the internet, and knew that songs could be about what legends such as Bruce Springsteen sang about.  This is music for the people.