Wednesday 19 Jun
 
 

Kanye West — Yeezus

Try as you might, but there’s no escaping Kanye West. Turn on the TV, radio, computer — hell, take a stroll downtown and you might see his mug projected on the side of a building. It’s an undeniable fact of life in 2013: Kanye West is bigger than Buddha, Krishna and The Beatles (today, anyway) and he’ll be the first to let you know about it.
06/18/2013 | Comments 0

John Moreland — In the Throes

With the soul of a poet and the look of a Sons of Anarchy extra, Tulsa’s John Moreland has been gifted the sort of gravely, booming voice that does Bruce Springsteen proud and a similar understanding of the universal human experience. It’s made for some fantastic records — both as a solo artist and with his dissolved Black Gold Band — and In the Throes is his best yet.
06/19/2013 | Comments 0

Jumpship Astronaut — Lights Burn Out

Oklahoma has never been the haven for electronic rock music that it is for country, folk and, as of late, psychedelic pop, but from the sound of Lights Burn Out, Oklahoma City upstart Jumpship Astronaut seems intent on changing that.
06/12/2013 | Comments 0

Various artists — Reaching Out

Like so many Oklahomans, the local music scene has responded with generosity and grace in the wake of last month’s tragedy in Moore. In the weeks since, droves of local musicians have banded together for benefit concerts and radio marathons to raise funds for the relief effort, and with extraordinary results.
06/04/2013 | Comments 0

Progress in Color — Get Well

It’s been a long, bumpy ride for Glenpool’s Progress in Color, which saw a record deal with Epic evaporate before even one record could come of it, but it’s led the outfit to where it was supposed to be.
06/04/2013 | Comments 0
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Home · Articles · Music · Music · Stoney LaRue — Velvet
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Stoney LaRue — Velvet


Matt Carney October 5th, 2011  

You know you’re listening to a Red Dirt — not a country, or worse, pop-country — album, when a song called “Dresses” hits you in the gut with the lyric “You recklessly abandon me / That’s just the way you are.”

The song opens Edmond resident Stoney LaRue’s second studio full-length, “Velvet,” six years after “The Red Dirt Album.” At times, LaRue and his band (which features CMA favorite Randy Scruggs on guitar) kid themselves with the limited singer’s range, but they really nail the dark, smooth feeling suggested by the title, with soft-rock guitar fills and a mysterious flute lilting in and out.

“Dresses” isn’t really one of those songs, but it works as foreboding introduction to the drama that plays out in “Wiregrass” and “Sharecropper.” The anxiety cast by the intro and lyrics on “Sirens” and “Has Been” seem much truer to LaRue’s expertise.

With songwriting partner Mando Saenz, he shamelessly mixes metaphors to maintain a rhyme in the last verse of “Look at Me Fly,” however, which combines with a limp, rock-dude chorus to form the album’s only grievous misstep. It sounds badly out of place.

Eventually, the title track does shine a sense of closure on the album, but only a sense. “You just don’t know how long I can stay,” LaRue sings. When an LP lacks a strong scene and a full vocal range, intuitive lyrics can only do so much.

LaRue plays Friday at Wormy Dog Saloon, 311 E. Sheridan. For more information, call 601-6276 or visit wormydog.com—Matt Carney

 
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