Brian Fallon - Local Honey (2020) [FLAC]

Released ................ 2020
Source .................. CD
Genre ................... alternative, blues rock
Codec ................... FLAC
Bit Depth ............... 16 bits
Sampling Rate ........... 44.1 kHz

01 - When You’re Ready
02 - 21 Days
03 - Vincent
04 - I Don’t Mind (If I’m With You)
05 - Lonely for You Only
06 - Horses
07 - Hard Feelings
08 - You Have Stolen My Heart

The Gaslight Anthem frontman's third solo effort, Local Honey pivots toward the Nebraska and Ghost of Tom Joad end of the Springsteen spectrum, delivering a mostly stripped-down set of Americana-leaning country-folk-pop songs that favor introspection over arena-ready grandeur. Chalk it up to the uneasy times or having turned 40, Fallon is reckoning with his past while trying to mitigate the opaqueness of the future. He tackles fatherhood on the heartfelt opener "When You're Ready," telling his children "When you're ready to choose someone make sure they love you half as much as me." Follow-up "21 Days" wrestles with the grief and acceptance needed to break a longtime cigarette habit, while the waltzing "Vincent" goes the classic troubadour route by way of a richly detailed #Me Too-era murder ballad. Echoes of Jason Isbell's hard-won wisdom and blue-collar earnestness color "Lonely for You Only" and affirming closer "You Have Stolen My Heart," the latter of which sees Fallon occasionally falling into a lovely falsetto. Alarmingly short by traditional LP standards, the eight-track set's brevity helps to drive home the themes of family, faith, and reconciliation, and the melodies, while bracingly familiar, feel crystallized rather than rote. Local Honey is an inside record that's better-suited for humid mornings and overcast afternoons than the open highway. In looking stridently inward, Fallon has crafted his most homespun and relatable outing to date