Whiskeytown/Pneumonia

Belinda here with a wonderful, but how shall I say this, a day late find. You see, for the past few weeks Whiskeytown's Pneumonia has not been out of my CD player. Unfortunately, this is the last CD you can hear from the Ryan Adam fronted band. Alas Whiskytown is no mas! (That is no more for my non-Spanish speaking readers.) It seems label pressures and such, hung up Pneumonia for well over a year,and the band imploded under the stress. Whiskeytown may have disbanded, but that is no reason to miss out on these great tunes.

From the first notes of Carol Lynn I had a "BAND" dejavue feeling. The goosebump kind that made me go, oh I want more of this please. Now, to be honest, nothing about Whiskeytown really sounds like The Band, but it's got the energy and feeling of it. Make sense? No? Oh well, sue me, it's my article! Anyway, The Band was the first thing I thought of when I heard Pneumonia for the first time.

Whiskeytown has a history in and of itself, but I choose to focus on the music here. I'll let others pontificate about their demise and the politics and such. These are songs you just want to walk around all day hearing and Ryan's voice is so relaxing and pleasant. I almost had a vision of him lounging on a sofa while recording. Most people have the music going as background sounds to their every day life and this CD will keep things calm and in the groove. It's got that all important familiar feeling to it. One of the great unifying powers of music is familiarity.

Don't be sad is popish but not with that stale quality that a lot of pop music suffers from. This CD is a mix of popish, twangy music but honestly, some of it doesn't quite sound like it belongs, but somehow not having a chance to hear it at all would be a tragedy. Being that this is Whiskeytown's swan song, so to speak, you find yourself cutting a little more slack cause you know there isn't another CD coming to work the songs into. Under Your Breathe feels like it should be somewhere else, but where? If not here, it would be homeless.

So, put aside some of the problems of song selection. Yes, it doesn't always make sense, especially when listening to experimental tracks like Paper Moon, but the alternative is silence. Just listen to each individual song as an adventure on it's own. Ryan Adam is still around, he has a solo career now, so this songwriter is still with us, making wonderful musical interludes, just not with Whiskeytown.

Go to www.losthighwayrecords.com and check out the band as it once was and give Pneumonia a chance, it's worth the side trip to find.

Belinda signing off and taking her Echinacea before listening to Pneumonia again!