Reviews
Artist:Nolan McKelvey Album: Forward
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.nolanmckelvey.com/
Given the Arizona-based singer-songwriter had suffered a family friend's suicide and the loss of both his father and mother within six months of each other, this, his third solo album is, as the title suggests, charged with far more hope and positivity than you might expect. Indeed, he sets out his resolution from the start, opening with the strummed title track, gathering in instrumentation and power as it builds, McKelvey singing about emerging from darker days and urging "We can't turn back time/Don't look over your shoulder/We can leave the past behind", drawing on imagery of conflict in striking a note on building anew ("We'll chart a new path/Through the guns, rockets, and mortars").
Featuring Morphine's Dana Colley on sax and with a steady marching drum beat, 'Tir na nOg' continues that musical uplift as he evokes the Irish mythological land of eternal youth, beauty, health, abundance and joy, mentioning Niamh, the sea god's daughter, and Mag Mell, the Celtic Otherworld, in a celebration of those who have gone before and the assurance of meeting again in the hereafter.
In earlier years, McKelvey worked with Vietnam veterans as a rehabilitation counsellor, and this forms the basis of 'Pretending', an anti-war narrative sung in the voice of the fictional Patrick Henry Lane, named for one of the leaders of the American War of Independence, a soldier's son who self-deludingly followed in his father's footsteps until, faced with the true horrors, "it occurred to me the only Holy Trinity/Is war, guns, and greed and it's never ending…So I laid down my sword, stepped away from their lord".
Carried by a warm walking bass line, 'Phoenix Rising' returns to the theme of rising up from the ashes to "see what we can salvage from the coals", while flames continue to burn in the jaunty 'Tears In The Dells (Yarnell)', a tribute to the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshot firefighters who perished in a fire Yarnell, Arizona, and featuring local steel guitar legend Jon Rauhouse, sung in the voice of Brendan McDonough, the lookout and sole survivor.
The vocals gradually emerging, another true life tragedy informs the bluesy walking rhythm 'I Can't Breathe' written in 2014 after the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African American, who was put in a prohibited chokehold ("11 times he cried, I can't breathe") by Daniel Pantaleo ,a New York cop, who was not indicted (but was fired five years later) and brought out of storage following similar deaths, George Floyd among them.
Personal notes underpin the next three tracks, 'Other Side', featuring an electric guitar solo bridge, being written following his mother's diagnosis with progressive supranuclear palsy but being unable to visit her due to covid travel lockdowns ("They closed all the borders, they closed all the ports/They say we must wait, let's pray this time is short/We will make it through, we will cross the abyss/Then I will see you, on the other side of this"). Then, Ryan Stigmon on weeping pedal steel, 'Sweetest Dream' is a slow swaying brushed drums lullaby for his daughter and a prayer that she'll not be caught in the undertow of tragedy and not to "be afraid to chase horizon's line/To become untethered, and leave your ties behind".
Sandwiched between, etched on a spooked dobro riff, the powerful five-minute 'Mother' parallels his mother's disease with the environmental impact of climate change ("Mother is dying, there's no denying/Temperature's rising, there's no disguising/Feels like a hurricane, spinning in her brain/Blood boiling in her veins, destruction and pain").
It ends, though, one a note of hope with the Springsteen colours of 'New House', a steady walking rhythm, steel-keening, anthemic bookend to 'Forward' and an echo of the sentiments behind 'Phoenix Rising', about tearing down the walls of divisiveness and building a new home where all are welcome ("So drop the wrecking ball, call the demolition man/When all the pillars fall, we can begin again/With a new construct, a grand new plan/Where we can embrace the stranger in our land"). Like the title, this is a momentum you really should get caught up in.
Mike Davies
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