James Levy & The Blood Red Rose - Pray To Be Free

Das vierte Album für den jungen Herren wird unter dem mittlerweile dritten Künstlernamen veröffentlicht. Nach den Alben "Rotten Love" (2006) und "Glorious" (2007) mit seiner Band Levy und dem Soloalbum "Blood Red Rose" (2010) als James Levy, steht nun "Pray To Be Free" von James Levy & The Blood Red Rose in den Plattenläden.

Die blutrote Rose hört eigentlich auf den Namen Allison Pierce, ist eine langjährige Freundin von James Levy und zugleich eine Hälfte von The Pierces. Neben ihrer glockenhellen Stimme, die eine schöne Ergänzung zu Levys Bariton darstellt, brachte sie auch die Verbindung zu Guy Berryman, dem Bassisten von Coldplay, der das Album produzierte, mit ein.

Aus über 50 Songs, die teilweise in anderen Versionen auch schon auf früheren Levy-Veröffentlichungen zu finden waren (bei "Holy Water" können wir Levynisten bereits die dritte Version verzeichnen), wählte das Duo 12 aus, um sie uns in Form von Streicher umschmeichelnden und von Bläsern umwehten, romantischen Duetten im Stile von Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood oder Jane Birkin/Brigitte Bardot & Serge Gainsbourg zu kredenzen. Zeitlos schön!

Das über Heavenly Records veröffentlichte Album kommt im Klappcover - Vinyl mit beigelegter CD.

The resulting album, particularly gems such as ‘Hung to Dry’ and ‘Pray to be Free’, strikes an effortless balance between pop melodies, country swagger, boy-girl twee, lush string arrangements, and a pair of the most striking and flawless voices you’re likely to hear harmonising all year.

Allison Pierce is such a constant and welcome fixture throughout the album that it seems almost an injustice that she doesn’t get equal billing in the band name. Levy’s baritone is a deep, melancholic dirge, and Pierce’s syrupy-sweet tones provide a welcome foil to the solemnity, giving Levy a little slap of pep whenever he becomes too introspective.

There are few surprises in the course of the album’s 35 minute run-time. A lovely exception is the brass and atmospheric layered vocals of ‘Keep My Baby’ which sounds almost like a countrified version of Blonde Redhead or School of Seven Bells. The novelty wears off slightly in the second half, the pace dropping substantially with Pierce taking a back seat; and the bland keyboards and slow, repetitive chorus of ‘Positively East Broadway’ bring the momentum of the album to something of a halt.

(thelineofbestfit.com)

HVNLP90 - James Levy & The Blood Red Rose 'Pray To Be Free' by heavenlyrecordings

Wrapped in velvet strings, suave horns and all-round lush deportation, Pray to Be Free adopts the Serge Gainsbourg’n’Brigitte Bardot/Jane Birkin and Lee Hazlewood’n’Nancy Sinatra/Ann-Margret models, by turns dark, playful, smouldering and joyful. Life’s all about death, relationships and the death of relationships, it seems; but hey, let’s have a laugh too.

Despite its clear 50s and 60s homage, Pray to Be Free’s spirit is never pastiche. Perhaps Pierce’s solo credit, Cry Myself to Sleep, most resembles a period piece, but who else is crossing Patsy Cline with Petula Clark? Levy’s songs mine a stylistic hotchpotch, some genre-specific (Painted Red’s country waltz) but Positively East Broadway, say, is mid-way between swagger and world-weary lament. If there is an overall mood, imagine a slightly sozzled, mischievous Leonard Cohen on the front porch having discovered the joys of country music.

The album’s sterling finale is Precious Age of 13 , half-sung in Hebrew (borrowed from Levy’s bar mitzvah) as a purposeful Gainsbourg homage (“but I couldn’t sing in French, so I sing in Hebrew instead!” he admits). Yet it serves as the album’s spiritual curtain-raiser, with the newly teenage James anticipating life as a man – lust, loneliness, pain, and repeat. Pray all you want, boy, but love will never set you free.

(bbc.co.uk)

The Pierces coverten übrigens auf ihrem letztjährigen Album "You & I" bereits den Song "Glorious" von Levy:

The Pierces- GLORIOUS from water&power on Vimeo.