Lewis & Clarke – Blasts of Holy Birth (La Societe Expeditionnaire, 2007)
(This originally appeared in the Spring ‘07 issue of Skyscraper)
A swell of strings brings this offering from rural Pennsylvania to a start. Calm and seemingly refined the album begins with “Secret of Golden Flower” whose instrumental composition seems a bit more powerful than the title track that it leads into. The vocals of Lou Rogai aren’t as effortlessly enticing as the settings that they come from. It is a calm and gentle tone, one that fits musically, but ends up sounding a bit thin to lead. In the first two tracks of “Blasts of Holy Birth” the entirety of the recording can be surmised. There are gradually swells, some vox and it all settles down again. The folk-jazz of “Before it Breaks You” doesn’t instantly recall Pentagle, but one can figure that Rogai owns a few Bert Jansch recordings. If filed alongside some of whatever “New Weird America” is, this release isn’t a slouch. At the same time that the arrangements and sincerity of the music make one believe again in beauty, it could be simply examined as a self-imposed exiled city dweller getting a few ideas outta his cluttered mind.
