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CD Reviews: Review of Love & Bombs by Jake Brennan & The Confidence Men
 
Red Rocker Home / CD Reviews Home / Entertainment Channel / Bullz-Eye Home


Click here to buy yourself a copy from Amazon.com Jake Brennan & The Confidence Men: Love & Bombs (2004)

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Boston beat poet Jake Brennan rented a studio in Cambridge, MA, last year, inviting everyone he knew for a three-day party that doubled as a recording session. The result was over 50 songs, backed by these Confidence Men and a host of local musicians, eventually getting trimmed to the 12 tracks pressed on the debut Love & Bombs. With the exception of an old Ian Hunter tune (“Original Mixed Up Kid”), everything here is original. The writing is earnest, that of a true throwback, while the musicianship reeks of barroom Boston at 1:00 am.

While no track strays too far from the next and very little sets a new standard for the singer/songwriter class, the compositions are snug and, for the most part, pleasing. The musical styling hops from college radio ditties ala Paul Westerberg (“Shake ‘Em On Down”) to honky tonkin’ Bottle Rockets spoofs (“Annie May”), but Brennan’s vocal remains the closest thing to Elvis Costello I’ve heard. On a Springsteen-like shuffle (“Two of a Kind”), Brennan duets with unknown Sarah Borges for one of the album’s simple highlights (“just like cheap wine and cigarettes, apologies and regrets, we go together like match sticks and gasoline”).

Boasting piano, pedal steel, fiddle and abundant guitars, Love & Bombs should not leave you wanting more instruments. It’s less striking than the last Elvis record, but Brennan’s debut outplays anything Evan Dando has done in the past decade. Unless he throws another studio party and follows this one up in a timely manner, however, the Confidence Men will be packing their guitars and vending their wares to the next saloon stud by year’s end. And that’s a safer bet than the Patriots making the playoffs!


~Red Rocker 
redrocker@bullz-eye.com






 

 

 

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