I admit that last year when these boys from Alabama signed to RCA Records, I had a bit of fear that someone would try to cage them or change them.
The reassurances came from the new songs performed live this year and then the record company was one of the most serious. I was almost calm.
Never were fears so misplaced, friends, and every now and then even something “viral” on social media has value.
Here it is.
The 5 guys from Mobile give the world 11 songs of stunning beauty.
If with the previous Moment of Truth (2022) they had begun to warm up their engines, to stir up interest, to amaze the public with their country southern soul rock, today with this second album they give us a true jewel of Southern music.
In Alabama the reservoir of talent never seems to run dry, a bit like in Texas, and today Brandon Coleman (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Drew Nix (guitars, harmonica), Andrew Bishop (bass), Zach Rishel (guitars) and John W. Hall (drums) can fully qualify as the best group to come out of the state’s forges in recent years.
Take a blender and add the melancholy of an old country song, the energy of 50s rock and roll coming out of a jukebox, the expressive strength of southern music and the spirituality of the soul of a gospel choir and you’ll have the sound that the Red Clay Strays give to the world.
On this journey they are guided by the master of the console (who also plays some instruments on the album) the great Dave Cobb and the collaboration adds depth and variety to their sound.
Just put the needle on the record and Disaster starts: a song that seems rarefied, old-time blues, but then slowly grows and grabs the soul with energy and electric scratches.
Brandon Coleman‘s voice is a blow to the heart with every note and the solos seem to arrive like tears in the dark blue.
The energy remains at very high levels even with the subsequent Wasting Time.
Southern rock played as if it had been invented by them and mastered in the manner of the great bands of the past.
The voice is something crazy and flamboyant, but the lyrics speak to us of resistance to desperation and reaction. Beautiful.
Wanna Be Loved has the same power, the same energy as the previous ones, but not in the sound which is a blues soul with a tormented soul, but in the intense voice of the leader.
It penetrates under the skin and shakes the soul like an earthquake.
The same earthquake that causes the very fast rock of Ramblin’ in our speakers, the guitars are so protagonists that it is the only song in which the lyrics take a back seat. Perhaps a break from the weight of the words of the rest of the album.
Perhaps to lighten the burden that words, voice and music will be on souls with the next two songs.
One is Drowning, slow and creeping like the blues of the damned souls of the Delta, but with lyrics so vivid that you can touch them thanks to the voice that fell like a gift from Heaven into Brandon Coleman‘s vocal chords.
The other is the wonderful Devil in My Ear: a lilting and powerful riff that creates a dark atmosphere that disturbs the soul.
The voice makes everything even more powerful by singing us words in which the protagonist is overwhelmed by reality. A warning against deep depression that leads to rejecting life itself.
A punch in the stomach as well as in the soul. Stupendous.
When the anguish and the pain of living, the desire not to resist seem to take over, the soul of the South shines through.
Soul sung like at Sunday Mass, on your knees before God: On My Knees is all this and releases positive energy and enveloping riffs as if we were in the ’50s.
The song that gave the album its title, Moments, is full of all this, dark moments and moments of joy: everything is part of life and must be accepted.
Everything brought them to where they are now: failures, effort, rebirths, fortitude.
The album ends with this belief and acceptance of something superior to us with the beautiful ballad God Does.
When music is beauty and culture and not just entertainment, you are faced with something that will last forever over time and will not be forgotten for something “newer”: this Made By These Moments by Red Clay Strays is special and it will be something that no lover of quality music should shy away from.
A band that has subverted the unwritten rules of the music business: independent despite a major label, of superior quality despite their being viral, humble and simple guys despite a success that is becoming overwhelming.
This 2024 will be remembered as the most incredible year that American independent music has ever seen and this album is the brightest proof of this.
Elvis sowed seeds in Alabama that gave wonderful flowers (among which: Jamey Johnson, Adam Hood, Taylor Hunnicutt, the Muscadine Bloodline, Drake White, Drayton Farley), but perhaps the flower of Brandon Coleman and his Red Clay Strays has such a strong scent that it actually seems to come from the garden of Graceland.
Good listening,
Trex
