Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
We cannot fight for what we believe in if we have no sense of the history that made us who we are, the sense of being we find when we understand how our ancestors are tied to us, how their actions, loves, desires, and mistakes have brought us into the world to carry on the genes, the D.N.A of the locations that shape our soul.
Celebrated musician Israel Nash returns to his roots and the land of his bloodline as his latest release, the sublime Ozarker, sees the notion of generational love is passed down through word of mouth, a mother’s memory, and with the piqued interest of a man searching for reason in a sea of conflicting emotions brought on by a wild world screaming for attention.
If you are going to be larger than life, then your music needs to speak volumes, and Ozarker perfectly sums up the belief required to take a bold piece of music and thrust into it the sparkling, dynamic personality that makes it stand out beyond mere words.
Across tracks such as Roman Candle, Firedance, the superb Lost In America, Midnight Hour, Shadowland, and the album title track of Ozarker, the Kevin Ratterman produced album sees memories of the anthemic and working class/blue collar melodies that hit out with passion from the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, the snapshots of life and the struggles of those who don’t just feel the themes composed, they live with them every day, they are the ones who are constantly pushed against the wall and yet who will give their last dime to feed a neighbour’s kid.
Ozarker is an album of respect, for the music, for the people who will feel the pulse of humanity woven into every segment of music, every ounce of notes and delicate ties that bind us to that in which we were born. The space of the country in which he was raised adding an elemental progression that compliments the ideas and surroundings and the representation of the people to which the modern notion of The United States of America was built upon…the rocks and foundations of the family and the blessing of simplicity made to roar in defiance.
A stirring album that harks of the infinite and the intimate findings in which your gifts come from, top class in every respect.
Ian D. Hall