Reviews

The sophomore album Palace and Stage from Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, one of America’s most eclectic bands, gets off to a rollicking start with “All One,” which immediately gets the feet stomping and draws comparisons to Kings of Leon, just not so emotional. “Blind Lead the Blind” is tailor-made for radio and will fit in perfectly with the current batch of songs about the economic shit storm. The varied instrumentation, including violins, keyboards and strings might also draw comparisons to Flogging Molly, but Dusty Rhodes comes off as more down to earth and earthly powerful.

About halfway through the record things tend to drag a bit, especially on lackluster songs like “Andy” and the title track. However, things get back on the right track with “Sorry for Now” where the vocals take center stage and lead the rest of the band to their dynamic best. The main standout belongs to “W.W.M.D.?” which is one of the best songs of the year and just about everything comes together and pulls off one of the most interesting lyrical texture with musical background seen all year.

Things just keep getting better with “The Ballad of Jim and Casey,” which pulls together many styles to form quite a cohesive whole. The one head-turner of the record is “So Low,” a soft number with vocals courtesy of violinist Andrea Babinski. Compared to everything else on the record, “So Low” comes out of nowhere, but that’s welcome because it’s something different and totally unexpected.

The rest of the record falls in line with “So Low” but that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. To show how eclectic this band really is, they close the record with a goof Mexican folk song “Quejao” that feels funny, but ultimately doesn’t do anything but impress people with how musically different this band is.