A rushed Monday morning commute was not the most conducive environment to give this album its first airing, but some tracks from Micah P.Hinson’s third and latest are so heart-wrenchingly poignant that I was almost welling up onto another mans shoulder. That’s an indication of the usual cattle crush ride on the tube rather than a little nugget of personal disclosure, but you get the picture.
With a passing resemblance to a young myopic Elvis Costello, the slow rumbling Texan drawl that emerges from Hinson’s wry frame seems to much closer match expectations based upon his unsettled personal history of addiction and mental illness, money problems and vagrancy, a jail term, and a painful back condition that endured during this recording. I suppose I’m a subscriber to the ‘troubled artist’ theory - at least to have had experiences from which to draw creative intensity if not currently facing obstacles; and all that is, as typically for Hinson, evident here. But the album also often hints at a flickering light at the end of the tunnel, and at those points seems to be some kind of cathartic celebration. The biggest source of his salvation must be his new(ish) wife. He actually proposed at the end of a show at London’s Union Chapel late last year, and parts of the album are practically a love letter to his muse. Continue Reading
