By Greg Walker
Lord Nelson
Transmission, Self released
If Tom Petty, with his tight-gripped, loose-lipped optimism, sang about bank robberies and car crashes, drug busts and broken relationships, it would sound something like Lord Nelson on Transmission, the group’s latest 11-track offering, a project that attempts to capture the dynamic, gritty-yet-generous pre-pandemic live sound of the band when it was doing shows throughout the country. As COVID-19 loosened its grip, Lord Nelson released the album, hoping that people would find something to nod their heads and tap their feet to, while discovering solace in the pain of a sometimes brutal world—and maybe catch the group on the road again in the near future. Mission accomplished.
Lord Nelson’s sound and words take on the darker side of life, with a hope and a prayer that music will bring us together and exorcize our demons. The band also relates to listeners in a way that even Petty was unable to do. The musicianship and songwriting is of a high order, and the songs cover a lot of ground through a set of grizzly short stories. If you like songs that uplift while not shying away from the shadowy parts of life, you might find a new favorite in Transmission. “This old world is bound to see you fail / But I love you tooth and nail.” (Released January 2022)
The Haze & Dacey Collective
Letters from Gilead, HazyShade Productions
The Haze & Dacey Collective has put together a stunning reworking of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in the form of 10 songs that recount the novel’s war on women. Musically, Letters from Gilead is sparse and simple, though the mandolin, piano, and group vocals provide a lushness to the project. The lyrics might lack poetry in favor of storytelling, but they will resonate with anyone who’s read the book or seen the TV series—even the uninitiated will be moved.
Letters from Gilead is Kirsten “Haze” Hazler’s attempt to support women during a time when women’s rights, reproductive and otherwise, are threatened by callous governments. Atwood has said in interviews that everything she wrote in The Handmaid’s Tale has already happened in our times, and it’s reflected in Letters’ title track: “I don’t know what you see on the news / but no doubt they sanitize the views.” The album plays like a drama, as we follow June and other characters, their loss of freedom and will to live, their glimmers of hope, in the form of love and lust, family and escape.
It is a grand undertaking that shows Hazler & Dacey’s skill at distillation and evocation. At the core of Atwood’s work and this album is the question: What is life worth without freedom? (Released November 2021)
