Brendan from Autumn Hollow just sent me a track called “Orlando Brown” from their new record…Full album is coming out 4/2/13 and our local cd release party is at Precinct on 4/6/13. So I figured I’d do a little review of this tune before their full release, then review that when the whole thing comes out. The description of the song is “the 4th track on the record, “Orlando Brown”, is about an ex-NFL player who suffered perhaps the most tragic and unusual career ending injuring in the history of sports.. .Also, there is a group chorus at the end of the song that includes the lovely voices of our children, family, friends, and several musicians who were kind enough to stop by the studio.” That’s pretty badass.
Boston is a sports town, Boston loves a hero, Boston should love this song. This is a story song that doesn’t play out like a typical story song (though at just over 5 minutes it clocks the typical time of one). It’s much more catchy, has a great composition that was obviously well thought out to be a song that would catch people’s ears. Well placed harmony parts, straight forward rock n’ roll guitars and instrumentation and strategically placed breaks in the song make for a really great tune that you want to give more than one listen to.
The close of the song is extremely climatic, building slowly into an all out sing-a-long. It makes me want to be in the crowd at these guys live gig so I can sing along, raise my drink in the air and cheers to the whole audience.
What I get from this right off the bat and throughout of the course of the song (and the band in general) is authenticity. The band is tight, the structure is solid, but they aren’t trying to hide anything. With so much vocal work in the genre you get too much twang, too much put on “I’m singing Americana, do I come from Boston or do I come from Austin” style. Lead singer Brendan Murphy’s voice is genuine, raw, and true. Perhaps the guys lean a bit more to the rock side of the Americana scale than the country side, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.