Rock Plaza Central – At the Moment Of Our Most Needing…

Rock Plaza Central frontman Chris Eaton isn’t your normal rock n roll singer- a brief glance at his biography should show this. Eaton already has two novels to his name (2003’s The Inactivist and 2005’s The Grammar Architect). Since completing At the Moment... he has embarked on a series of twitter based micro fiction and a biography project involving the lives of a whole host of other Chris Eatons. It is from this hyperactive creative mind that At the Moment Of Our Most Needing Or If Only The Could Turn Around, They Would Know They Weren't Alone has emerged.It is clear from the outset that Eaton and his cohorts delight in words, playing with them and tumbling them over and over. As documented in our track by track breakdown of the album, the references come thick and fast: one minute quoting Faulkner’s ‘Light In August’, the next cribbing lyrics from The Rheostatics and Gordon Lightfoot on the frenzied Mariachi-Klezmer warning that is ‘(Don’t You Believe The Words of) Handsome Men'. Elsewhere lyrics and song titles intertwine, referencing other parts of the record, seemingly taking inspiration from itself. Despite the constant wordplay and the frankly long-winded title, the album manages to avoid falling in to the pretention trap that can often befall such 'wordy' projects.For the most part Rock Plaza Central turn their hand to a lilting, ramshackle take on Americana, building layers of not-quite-harmonious vocals onto a base of delicately picked banjo, scrapping violin and acoustic guitar. As ever Eaton's vocal twang is never what you would call easylistening, but it fits perfectly with the tales contained within the record. While the songs rely on a fairly standard base, it is the way in which the band augment their sound with intricate percusion lines and muted horns that sets At The Moment... ahead of the chasing pack. Now on their fourth studio album, the band have succeeded in producing a coherent record that improves and develops as it goes on. Although ‘The Wrong Side Of The Right’ seems to suffer from a surfeit ideas that makes it seem a mite too shambolic, for the most part Rock Plaza Central seem to have finely honed their songwriting craft; from the urgency of the driving ‘Holy Rider’ to the lilting instrumental ‘The Long Dead March’.The album ends as it started, quoting Faulkner, before developing into what sounds like a chamber-folk jam on the theme of ‘Kashmir’ by Led Zeppelin, all big drums, multi layered vocals and rousing strings. Like so much on At The Moment Of Our Most Needing..., it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. 81%You can hear '(Don't You Believe The Words Of) Handsome Men' on our Oh! Canada Volume 3 compilation