Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
John T. Davis certainly knows how to pack a dramatic punch. Arguably from his days as the foremost documentary film maker in Ireland, the ability to lead either the viewer, or in this case the listener, down a certain way of thinking, of believing in a clear route towards an enlightenment, and then pulling back the whole picture, the seamless, confident and flawless scene to reveal another kind of truth, a missing link between what we know and what can only be learned; this is the world that John T. Davis shows in both his album Last Western Cowboy and the distinctive country hooks that flood Indigo Snow.
Whereas Last Western Cowboy played with the child’s imagination, where it bounced along with wonder and the feelings of the passionate release involved in allowing the remains of the child’s thoughts to roam free, Indigo Snow sits very much in the camp that alludes to the adult returning, the grind of memory and of present situations which take a person down the path towards bitterness and despair, are captured with infinite fascination.
The wonder of the album resides in the truth offered, the black and white flickering screen that somehow fills the room with more pathos than any Technicolor or surround sound system can infiltrate or beat; this is the steel resolve behind the steel guitar, the black emotion that is hidden by the American dream and the certain hypocrisies that any nation on Earth finds too demanding to acknowledge.
Heartache and heartbreak, the staple of the Country song and yet as John T. Davis makes clear, this is not Country, it is cowboy, the difference between the two, whilst perhaps murky in some close quarters, is to be seen as more thoughtful, verging more towards an honesty, an openness that can only come along when the stars have been your blanket and the dusty Earth an uncomfortable bed.
Tracks such as Range Romance, the excellent Coyote, Hank’s Song and Heartache on the Highway all make this natural sister album to Last Western Cowboy something in which to have felt honoured to hear. Too long does the truth of such things get caught up in innuendo and sideways suggestion, Indigo Snow is the wide open desert with nothing to do but the ride the horse of consequence till it drops in exhaustion.
A beautifully created set of songs, John T. Davis is a man of honour and one to hold up as an example of being able to plough a different furrow that expected.
Ian D. Hall