Reviewed: Firewater

Firewater
The Golden Hour
(Bloodshot)



Which is sadder: the lack of protest songs and artists or the fact that it's now seen as a strike against any artist when they branch out and make an album of protest songs?

Firewater's Tod A is surely to receive many a slams for The Golden Hour, with a backstory as old as music's mainstreaming. Tod, sick of Bush and the USA's current governmental stances, packs his bags and sets sail to see the lands of our repression and those that have transformed America's message of capitalism into bastions of hope. Through sickness and health, Tod discovers musics of all regions and religions, experiences cultures few Westerners will ever care to see, and comes home with a new sense of purpose and self-awareness.

If Tod were Angelina Jolie, he'd be praised for his outreach but in the world of music, if you don't stick to the tried and true outlines of rock and roll fame/suicide, then you're labeled a stiff or a turncoat. Forget the impending album with world music tendencies thanks to a heap of memories and sounds still swiming in your head.

It's not that it's bad, it's just that a host of music fans can't relate. They're imprisoned by white walls, the dumbing down of TV, and the fun and games simple music and video games provide. We're all guilty of it and to unplug from the matrix is a rough disconnect, therefore making a connection to an album celebrating that disconnect and rejuvenated reconnection a tough sell.

The Golden Hour will never be confused with world music's (and the term world music is such a broad, under-selling of music not considered Western) best and brightest but the enthusiasm in which Tod belts his words of protest and wisdom backed by the melodies he ate, drank, and slept in his journeys through the deserts, towns, and hubbles of Dehli, Rajasthan, Punjab (and many more locales India and Pakistan have to offer) create a landscape of hopeful bile that American ears need to hear. Surrounded by spin machines, The Golden Hour becomes the beacon of light to fight off the bullshit and to discover your own path. Tod dares not preach an ounce throughout Firewater's latest tale, but chooses to deliver his own truth for the purpose of others discovering theirs.


Highlights: "6:45", "A Place Not So Unkind", "Electric City"

Similar Sounds: The Tango Saloon, Living With War with muscle, Mali Music with edge