Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Dan Andriano in the Emergency Room - Hurricane Season

Ed. Note: This album has been out for nearly two months, so it's just going to be a brief write up. Chances are that if you're into this sort of thing, you already heard it.

I'm pretty sure I've gone on record that when it comes to Alkaline Trio I think that Matt Skiba writes the catchier songs, but Dan Andriano writes the more interesting, and to some extent, better, songs. So you can imagine my excitement when Dan Andriano announced that he was finally releasing a solo album (especially since he started playing solo as the Emergency Room about two or three years ago).

While the album has its fair share of dreary and sad sounding songs, as one might expect from the Alkaline Trio co-vocalist, but it also takes several twists turns that will catch a listener off guard if they're expecting reworked Alkaline Trio b-sides or acoustic folk songs. Unlike some of his peers who have gone the 100% folk route (coughChuckRagancough), Dan Andriano's solo debut is in the same vein as Dave Hause's Resolutions, released earlier this year. This means expanded instrumentation throughout most of the songs as well as the exploring of genres instead of being stuck to just one. Some songs do follow the typical "man-with-a-guitar" structure, other tracks are filled with a completely line up- drums, electric guitar, keys, organs and so on.

Whereas Andriano's previous work showed off his skills as a latter-day emo/punk rocker (except for maybe Slapstick), the songs on Hurricane Season show off his skill as a singer-songwriter in the vein of Bruce Springsteen (because not enough punks are doing that these days) and Ryan Adams. It's too early to tell if he'll also have a backing band* that will be credited on future albums like the aforementioned artists, but if you ask me Hurricane Season is a good a place as any to begin.

*perhaps said band will be known as The Emergency Room

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