"Lonesome River Band" - Chronology,vol. 2 - A Review

Disc two of the Lonesome River Band  Chronology has a similar sound to the first one, It starts off with a bonus song,written by their guitar player, lead singer, Brandon Rickman. The song is an upbeat tune called "Barely Beat the Daylight In". This is the first single from the EP, and it is a rich sounding upbeat song about trying to get home on time. It has a catchy melody full of some neat hooks with some great parts by the banjo,fiddle and mandolin. I was happy to see this disc mentioned in Audiophile magazine, because like the first disc, the Sound Quality produced by the folk up at Mountain Fever Studios and the mastering by Bill Wolf at Wolf Mastering is equal to audiophile. The tonal qualities are sweet and as good as it gets for a regular CD, That's why you should get the CD, because if you download this selection of songs ,they won't sound as good as the CD, an overcompressed mp3 file was not designed to be listened to.

  The other seven songs are from the 92-02 season of the Lonesome River Band. The twist is that they are done with today's version of Lonesome River Band and their sound, so they are not supposed to mimic the original versions. Lots of songs about heartbreak and hard luck songs, but they really don't project those moods, it is an upbeat mood. "The Crime I Didn't Do" is sort of a slow sad song about a guy who ends up bustin' rocks for something he didn't do. I really like "Sweet Sally Brown", just a real nice upbeat love song. I have watched several youtubes of this group and they sound excellent live. They just look like they enjoy what they do. And I bet they put on an awesome live show, this CD sounds like a live type performance rather than a studio recording. Sammy Schelor is one of my favorite banjo pickers, He just gets some great tones out the banjo and he is a master of the instrument. This group is full of great pickers and they are so good, really precise and original. Hargrove on fiddle does an excellent job as does Randy Jones on mandolin. Brandon Rickman lays down a real solid rhythm guitar for the vocals and lead instruments. As Barry Reed does a fine job on the bass. Watching the group play live, they really are together and Sammy Schelor has a big smile on his face has his group tears it up. This is great CD for chasin' away the blues. Enjoy!

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