Mike Metz Band
El Dorado
Little Chicken Records
By David Pilot
 Talk about all
over the place. Mike Metz is a man with a mission and an ear
for sounds so apparently divergent that it's only logical to
mesh them together in a powerful set list. El Dorado
is his debut effort, although Metz has been around the film industry's
musical consciousness for some time now. He's scored several
scenes for independent flicks and the occasional documentary,
and the focus such efforts require translates well-- occasionally
searingly well-- to his songwriting abilities when the music
itself is the thing. But variety's the spice of it all, and
El Dorado trumpets that point from the first rousing Herb
Alpert-inspired trumpet notes of "Peaches." The vocals
evoke Delbert McClinton at his hyped-up best and the Motown cum
Bordertown groove kicks up dust all the way to Tijuana. Lose
the manic energy and horn section, holding just the Stax-sounding
groove and sandpaper vocals in reserve, you've got "Forty
Tons" and a hankering for a stiff shot of Beam with no water
back.
That makes "East Hurtin' Street" a suckerpunch,
a sparsely arranged Southwest-tinged anthem of loss that would
fit exquisitely behind one of those Tarantino desert highway
running-from-the-law scenes that get inside your skull like an
elf with a belt sander.
The title track bleeds stone country in its opening stanzas,
only adding a Wurlitzer piano and haunting pop sensibility so
slowly that it takes a second listen to notice. It's a stunningly
beautiful cut that finds Metz adding a not-heard-before edge
of pain to his vocals that melds blissfully with Summer Burkes'
harmony lines.
No more secrets kept
In the graveyard of love
Them creaky bones
Come back and haunt
Had a way of foolin'
With the king and queen of hearts
Let the skeletons free
From the closet door
Let 'em dance nimble, baby
On the kitchen floor
'Cause there's a
Second chance in El Dorado
But then, just as "Ask Angeline" promises an alt.country
odyssey to come, "Winnebago" busts out an irreverent
mariachi groove and sets the town afire. A road warrior's home,
a small town adolescent beauty, some cotton candy-- you get
the picture. And can't help but smile. Or at least you smile
until "Shiny Automatic" gets into gear with these lines:
You're gonna give her back
What you stole away
I swear to you
The last thing I can do
'Cause my chrome .45
It don't give a thing
Only takes away
And it knows your name
The killin' gives way to smoky Chicago-style blues on "Westbound
to Roseville," which segues somehow smoothly into the lush
fiddle-driven aural landscape of "Here In Virginia."
The strings and martial percussion here aptly evoke the period
music that pervaded the 1860s, and the Civil War lyric, though
written from the Southern perspective, would appear to betray
some measure of familiarity with the war-time writings of one
Ambrose Bierce.
It's as hard to go wrong with this record as it is to classify
it. After all of the sounds detailed above, El Dorado
closes out with the suitably titled "Deal Breaker."
Is it an '80s hair metal power ballad? An outtake from Appetite
for Destruction? (Check the growly nasal vocals for an idea
where I'm going with that, or just cue up "I Used To Love
Her.") A fusion of blues and Zakk Wylde? Beats the hell
outta me. But it rocks.
And that's the bottom line on the record as a whole. You
can't expect to get into a mood, because it's impossible to guess
where the next riff is going to lead. Can't get bored unless
you're dead. And it'd be hard to avoid hitting repeat as the
final track winds down unless you absolutely, positively, of
utmost necessity must now return to normalcy and conform to the
horrors of mainstream music.
* Check out Mike Metz and co. at www.mikemetzband.com. Do some digging and
find out for yourself about the quality studio help he pulled
together for this effort-- a guy who debuts fronting players
who've contributed over the years to the sounds of Santana, The
Band, Percy Sledge, Chuck Berry and Tom Waits is a guy you really
oughtta do yourself a favor and investigate.
Just keep the cold water handy.
Contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net
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