LISTEN UP

First album by This Holy House a revelation

— It’s hard to believe that this central Arkansas band recorded this album in just two 12-hour sessions at Blue Chair Studios in Austin, Texas. It sounds like it has decades of living behind it that would take another decade to capture in a studio.

It’s rootsy rock with strong leanings toward the epic and, as indicated in the title, there’s plenty of loving and conflict.

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Elliott S. Cotten’s voice is a lethal weapon and he’s not afraid to use it. Whether he’s hitting a falsetto in the bluesy, soulful, it’s-gonna-be-allright “Put Your Arm Around My Shoulder,” or screaming through the cathartic rage of the politically dissatisfied “Three Pieces for the Devil’s Chess Game,” he is a force.

The rhythm section of brothers James and David Velek is equally adept, holding quieter moments steady but also able to erupt into storms of unbridled noise and not crash and burn.

This is an exceptional debut from a band that we hope will be around a long, long time (and they’ve recently expanded to a quartet with guitarist Jordan Ahne). Somebody sign these guys, quick! (Available only at thisholyhouse.bandcamp.com.)

Hot tracks: Along with the two mentioned above, opener “Love and War” sets the album’s ambitious and wonderfully conflicted tone.

  • SEAN CLANCYVore GravehammerVore/Frozen Solid MusicA-

Who needs imports? Arkansas produces its own quality death metal. Fayetteville’s Vore has been in the game for the better part of two decades, and Gravehammerrepresents a master’s course in the great American metal songbook. You could quibble over whether the viscous riffs and downshifted rhythms ultimately place Gravehammer outside the realm of death metal - the scene’s key adherents typically keep the hammer down at all costs - but Vore delivers ample payoffs in embracing an ugly, glowering slow burn.

Cuts including “The Claw Is the Law” roll with precision and heft, with each player’s instrument unobstructed and devastating. Dynamic and measured, Gravehammer builds substantial anticipation for the massacre and does not disappoint on the follow-through.

Hot tracks: “Throne to the Wolves,” “Gravehammer,” “The Cruelest Construct”

  • JEREMY M. DOHERTYAdam Arcuragi Like a Fire ThatConsumes All Before It ... 12th StreetB+

Adam Arcuragi is like the bastard child of Townes Van Zandt and Sweet Sweet Connie. Like the homecoming of star-crossed death rattles. Listening to him, you may hear Thom York or Eddie Vedder, Collective Soul or Jack Johnson. He calls this music “Death Gospil,” which is far, far duskier than it really is and may in fact be what he wishes it were. Not me.

The new album is uplifting. Not Jimmy Buffet-happy, but maybe Collective Soul? Here’s a snippet that hews closer to soulful than macabre: “So let me be your come back down/ Let me be your gettin’ on/Let me be the first voice as you step down from that boat ... The simple gift is the song you hear from this small familiar shore.” Now imagine this narrative set to music tinseled with tambourines and roots percussion and mariachi brass. Only thing not to like - low-budget production here is audible.

Hot track: “Parliament of the Birds.” - BOBBY AMPEZZANVarious artists The MusicInside: A Collaboration Dedicated to WaylonJennings Vol. II Average Joe/ScatterA-

This is unexpected. The second of a scattershot compilation of covers of the late, great country outlaw Waylon Jennings would seem to have hit-and-miss-mess written all over it. When you see that the artists doing the covering range from Montgomery Gentry and Pat Green to Jewel, the expectations bar is set extremely low. But whether it’s the variety of material (Jennings had an outlaw image, but he wrote conventional and nonconventional country tunes) or the adventurous spirit of those involved, this album works.

Dierks Bentley kicks it off in high gear with a cool take on “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean.” Jack Ingram’s “Bob Wills Is Still the King” doesn’t sound a bit like Western swing, but has attitude to spare. Even Jewel, who can’t sing a song without defanging it, is surprisingly alive on “Dreaming My Dreams of You.”

Apparently a Volume III is on the way. Bring it on.

Hot tracks: “Bob Wills Is Still the King,” Green’s “Rainy Day Woman,” “Lonesome,On’ry and Mean” - WERNER TRIESCHMANNDion Tank Full ofBlues Blue HorizonB+

Dion DiMucci, the former teen idol of the late ’50s (Dion and the Belmonts’ “A Teenager in Love”) and, in the ’60s as the solo artist who took “Runaround Sue,” “Ruby Baby” and “Abraham, Martin and John” to the Top 10, has the blues.

And that’s a good thing.

The singer, 72, has recorded his third blues album. The predecessors were acoustic and covers, but Tank has a full band and a set of mostly originals. What impresses is how completely DiMucci sounds right at home with the blues. His strong voice blasts on the rockin’ “I’m Ready to Go” and the spoken word “Bronx Poem” has an improvisational feel.

Hot tracks: “Ride’s Blues (For Robert Johnson),” which retells the influential bluesman’s crossroads myth, and “I’m Ready to Go.” - ELLIS WIDNER

Style, Pages 34 on 03/06/2012

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