Throw Back Review: Ian Fitzgerald “Empty Like the Lion Den”
2013’s “No Time to Be Tender” will likely go down as one of my favorite records of all time. Fitzgerald’s writing is absolute genius on this album and his delivery of the phrases that make you go “man, I wish I wrote that first” are so understated and straight faced that they are that much more exceptional. Well, before Ian released NTTBT, he worked with Dirt Floor Studios for another brilliant album that was released back in 2009. Many of these songs pop up in Ian’s setlists now a days as well. Songs like ‘Lillian’ and ‘The Great Emancipator’ have become staples in his live show, and songs I frequently request when I see Ian playing out. Let’s give this gem a closer listen…
The aforementioned ‘Lillian’ is the opening track on this collection. Driven by the songwriter’s always clever prose, an acoustic guitar, and a slew of accompany instruments and a very steady backbeat, it’s a pleasing listen and sets the stage for the entire record to be so.
‘Night Train’ has one of those lines in the middle of the tune that just turns your head, makes me rewind it multiple times and just listen to it. And this happens many times throughout the record…many.
“don’t hang your head or hold your breath / or split your heart to fit two chests”
There are some more forward perpetuated movement tracks here as well. It’s not all a solemn, gray day elegy. “Maps” has a big more of an upbeat feel to it, a spoken word full versed kind of rise and fall. When you write words as well as Ian Fitzgerald does, you are allowed to forego the need for extensive solos and to fit as many of those finely crafted words into a single verse as possible. Brilliance.
Ian’s vocals shouldn’t be overshadowed by the fact that he writes with such a poignant and moving pen. It may fall into that “gent with a guitar” that “plaid and pearl snap genre” but its far more than that. He has this completely sincere and pure hesitance to his phrasings and his voice. The chorus of “At the Bottom” puts his more delicate and wholesome singing on the stage.
If there is one thing that listening to this record makes me yearn for its chilly Autumn nights out in one of my favorite listening rooms, pumpkin flavored everything, and the world painted with a sepia toned paint pallet. It also makes me yearn to see Ian Fitzgerald perform with a full band. Pedal steel, upright bass, a cocktail drum kit, and perhaps a mandolin player doubling on guitar (hint, hint Ian). The songs here are so unpretentious, they are just great songs they are what they are. Fitzgerald just lays them out on the table and you eat them up and ask for some more. Soothing really. I don’t know, now that I am listening again I may like this record just as much as “No Time to Be Tender”. Ian Fitzgerald can make some damn fine albums.
http://ianfitzgerald.bandcamp.com/album/empty-like-the-lion-den
