Play 90 second soundbite of 'Take Me Down' @ 'CD quality'
Ok, think bright and jaunty Eagles. Then think gritty and realistic Springsteen. Next think Ryan Adams. Right, The Misers remind me of something that sits astride the first two and ends up closer to the last - get it? Think Ryan Adams and you won't be too far away from what The Misers are doing!! Can't be bad then eh!
'Amplified Life Stories' finds The Misers in a process of re-birth from an earlier incarnation as Neil Ivison & The Misers; The Misers is a stripped down, more pertinent and definitely more focussed combo built around Neil Ivison (vocals and guitar) and Adam Barry (Hammond, Rhodes and backing vocals). 'Amplified Life Stories' is a collection of ten classy and very workmanlike songs that've been given a glorious birth themselves by way of the combined Ivison/Barry ethos of making silky smooth music containing just the right degree of grit and grind to ensure the end product is believable and reproducible. Fairly simplistic on the whole, 'Amplified Life Stories' demonstrates how bloody good music can be made without the need for over-embellishment and/or too much studio jiggery-pokery. This is pretty-much as real as it gets and The Misers capture the heart and soul of the songs with exactly the right amount of laid-back but precise instrumentation - honesty is always the best policy and 'Amplified Life Stories' is just about as genuine as it gets!
The Misers sound is now rich and ripe yet somehow nicely understated and open with Barry's expressive keyboards filling up what space Ivison's cutting guitars and impassioned vocals leave; sure there's a hard core rockin' feel still in there but The Misers minimalist treatment takes their songs to new places and with their wonderfully succinct instrumental interplay they pack quite a hefty but rewarding punch. 'Amplified Life Stories' by The Misers suggests that Ivison and Barry have at last found their musical compromise and they now offer 'satisfaction guaranteed' with their real straight-arrow, down-the-line rockin', country-laced music; thoughtful, meaningful, trans-Atlantic nu-country rock if you will, British at heart but universally viable and kinda 'timeless'.
'Amplified Life Stories' by The Misers certainly gets the job done; this is a very tasty, very business-like offering from The Misers. Now, sounding extremely comfortable and very much at home with their music, The Misers seem to have successfully negotiated a passage through their creative minefield and are now striding out full of confidence and creativity into new territory that will hopefully allow them to grow proper 'teeth' and feed off their new-found artistic strength and move on and up! This is a great album from The Misers, 'Amplified Life Stories' is a real contender and is capable of taking the fight the whole way - keep watching, The Misers mean business and look set to make an impact - quite right too!!
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