David has a distinctly acoustic sound, and hints at traditional folk, blues and country. Alvin's lyric writing is superb, as he weaves intriguing stories of some hard-luck characters. They leave room for different interpretations. The musicianship and arrangements are the epitome of what good roots rock can be, with tasteful playing by all, and some excellent production by Greg Leisz. Also, the album is admirable sonically, with a decent dynamic range and very good treatment of the acoustic instruments and tasteful, subtle use of studio effects.
Roots rock is more or less by definition timeless music.
A lot of younger bands bored with the trendiness of commercial pop have turned to the combination of folk, early rock and blues for their inspiration. Dave Alvin as one of the genre's early innovators and proponents proves that such avoidance of trends can result not only in music that gets better with time, but a performer who also does the same. This is George Graham. Copyright 1998 George D. Graham. All rights reseved.