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Yahoo! Clubs: |
Type: Acoustic Album: Riley Armstrong (2000)
Armstrong, the first signee to Flicker (a label founded by Audio Adrenaline’s Mark Stuart, Bob Herdman and Will McGinniss), wrote everything, save a cover of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and provides much of the instrumentation. "Greater Than" grasps at God’s infiniteness. "Reborn" begins with the admission "feels like I’m lost for the words" before applying vivid metaphors to the titular transformation ("From a colorless past/You asked me to the paint store"). "Nine Point 8" compares fallenness to gravity holding us down ("Gravity always makes a mess/Sure it shares in burnt toast, shares in bad breath/But maybe if I stand up this time/Gravity will see it’s no friend of mine/I’ve got to decide if I’m going to fly/Or let gravity keep me grounded/ And You, You’re like the air/So free from gravity’s snare"). All three deal in familiar themes but recast them in imaginative language. A cheeky ode to "Sleep," the opening grabber "Sunray" and "The Only" are equally appealing. The beats begin to grow stale by record’s end, but the lyrics and tunes do not. Expect this record to be a thoughtful soundtrack for many a sunny, top-down day this summer.
Pictures of, you guessed it, Riley! |
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Here are some pictures from
Spirit West Coast--->
Riley, my mom and I at his Merch. Booth (He works his own, it's so cool!)--> |
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© 2001 KatzCCMusic
Riley
Armstrong’s quirky-yet-refined debut sounds like Brent Bourgeois led
Beck through the four spiritual laws and then made an album with him. Its
up-front acoustic guitars, drum loops, synth washes and mellow vocals also
recall early Jars of Clay. But despite those sound-a-likes, Riley
Armstrong is also marked by freshness uncommon in Christian music.