The Petroleum Age is a pleasantly simple, down to earth album, great for background summer evening listening. A past-meets-future venture blending sounds of Americana with rockabilly, Philip Gibbs’ fourth studio release will reach particularly close to the hearts of Texan listeners. Gibbs fondly recounts the stories of the fights put up by Sam Houston (“Sam Houston’s Blues”) and Stephen F. Austin (“Stephen F. Austin’s Blues”) against General Santa Anna in Texas’s fight for freedom.
The album starts off strong with the country yokel-inspired title track. Minimally post-processed and honest to its professed style, “The Petroleum Age” lyrically provides a bird’s-eye view of history. Justin Smith’s deft fiddling skills steal the show. “Stephen F. Austin’s Blues” takes a page from Bob Dylan’s book, with a hint of spoken history. Probably the highlight of the album, it is well produced with a full sound, simple but wholesome melodic lines and subtle percussion.
“Gallows’ Orphans” is another strong track, relatively speaking. Although it is a bit uninteresting thanks to a repeated melodic line consisting of only 5 notes repeated in different permutations, a periodic interlude of minor chord progressions redeems the song. The listener will find himself waiting with bated breath for those few seconds, and is never disappointed.
Although the first few tracks remain enticing and impactful, towards the middle of the album the quality begins to decline. “To Block You From My Eyes” is painful to listen to and Gibbs would do well not to model any further tracks on this one. Although the guitar work is pleasant and enjoyable, blunt and heavy vocals detract too much from it to allow for success. Around the sixth track, “In the Middle of the Evening”, the balance between a “down-home” natural style and an under produced lack of musicianship is lost, making the remainder of the album a chore to get through. With little to no pitch correction and little to no effort apparent on the production front, the second half of the album is inadequate. Flat sounds abound, and would perhaps be acceptable in a debut demo produced in Gibbs’ basement, kind of like Sam Beam’s first effort as Iron and Wine or even David Ford’s I Sincerely Apologize For All the Trouble I’ve Caused. But considering that this is Gibb’s fourth album and that it is a studio release, the standard leaves much to be desired.
Overall, Gibbs shows promise of musical ability and a good sensibility for natural and honest music, and has certainly proven himself on past albums. Hopefully in the future, he will put a little more effort into producing an album with consistent production quality and vocal accuracy.
Key Tracks- The Petroleum Age, Stephen F. Austin’s Blues, Gallows’ Orphans
Nivedita Gunturi- Muzikreviews.com Contributor
July 14, 2011
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