Who's Afraid of Being Lonely?

Chronique

After the art work for the Great Crusades album Who's Afraid of Being Lonely? was finalized, someone seems to have decided to re-sequence the album so that the running order of the songs doesn't match the list on the back cover. (For the record, the correct track list is: 1. "When the Stars Have Run Out of Souls"; 2. "Feels So Good"; 3. "Are We Having Fun Anymore?"; 4. "Hand Grenade Head"; 5. "All I Got"; 6. "Porch Song"; 7. "Elizabeth"; 8. "Heathers Will Haunt You"; 9. "November"; 10. "Caroline"; 11. "Who Put a Gun in My Hand?"; 12. "The First Spilled Drink of the Evening.") In any order, however, the songwriting/performing quartet of Brian Hunt, Brian Krumm, Brian Leach, and Christian Moder plays deliberate blues-rock, the tempos usually slow, in guitar/keyboards/bass/drums arrangements to support gravel-filled baritone vocals full of references to barrooms, drinking, and romantic troubles. "Porch Song" has some of the boogie feel of ZZ Top, while "Heathers Will Haunt You" recalls ZZ Top's big influence John Lee Hooker. "November" brings in a slightly Western flavor. But for the most part, the music plods along as the singer throatily complains in lyrics that have a conversational tone and sometimes don't quite fit the music underlying them. By the end, in the acoustic ballad "The First Spilled Drink of the Evening," the singer is sitting alone at the bar musing about a missing loved one who may or may not have absconded to England, provoking a lengthy speculation about what tourist sites she may be seeing there if she did. If she returns, the singer promises, he'll order them doubles. It sounds as if he himself has already had a few.

© William Ruhlmann /TiVo