Tough yet tender, intense yet humorous--this acoustic rock tells tales of spies, bounty hunters , alien abductors. crime scene investigators, card players, resistance leaders and foot soldiers.
Blue Night is Steve's 3rd record release. This isn't obvious as he's used different names. His 1st CD was by "Ace Shardtrix"--titled "The Drawbridge", and his 2nd CD was by "Steven Starjet"--titled "Love Wheel". All can be found on the cdbaby website for a song, as well as itunes and most places you can find good music online.
So now that he's calling his act "Steve & Ace", we might infer a certain unification theme here. But if "Steve" refers to the man we know as "Steve", then who or what is "Ace"? Perhaps an alter ego, possibly a pet name for his guitar or a dog?
At any rate, the singing, songwriting and guitar playing are as idiosyncratic as ever. One might even say more so, waxing particularly eccentric over the latter half of this record. The first half is solid rock. Probably the strongest tracks are #3, #5 & #7.
As with the first two records, each song pretty much tells a story--although often not strictly in storytelling style. Some are like minimalist art that paints a picture without painting a picture. The protagonists here seem to cover a broad spectrum of society encountering a diversity of situations.
Each song is like entering a new personal realm on a certain level, although you can just as easily relax and let the music roll over you. Turn it up loud, excuse the lousy editing, and you might even marvel a bit at how one guy and one acoustic guitar can emit such a variety of sounds. It's a nice antidote to today's wall of overproduced copycat synthetic junk pop.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
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