The Burning Truth

Presentación del Álbum

Edmonton, Alberta roots rockers the Old Reliable return with their most consistently solid album yet with their fourth effort, The Burning Truth. After their 1999 debut Gone Are the Days, the Old Reliable released two albums penned solely by each of the band's singer/songwriters, 2001's The Gradual Moment (a heartbreaking and personal album by Mark Davis, about his girlfriend's death from cancer, featuring backing from Howe Gelb and members of Calexico) and 2003's Pulse of Light Dark Landscape (a move into dreamy Grandaddy-like sonic landscapes penned by Shuyler Jansen). For The Burning Truth, the quintet return at last to having a pair of singer/songwriters, and the results are compelling. By some distance this is the closest the Old Reliable have come to a straightforward rock album, dispensing with the atmospheric stuff and dialing back considerably on the country elements, The Burning Truth is a muscular, tough-sounding set of rootsy pop/rockers. Alternating between Davis' taste for twang and deep honky tonk voice (both heard to great effect on the terrific "Fool for Her") and Jansen's raspier vocals and more rock-oriented songwriting, The Burning Truth blends the two singer/songwriters' contrasting styles far better than the debut had, to the point that the closing hard rock ballad "Dying 4 Love," sort of an urbanite's take on the good girl gone bad country standard "Long Black Limousine," sounds like it could have been written by either. That's the key to a successful double act, and it's one that the Old Reliable have finally pinned down.
© Stewart Mason /TiVo