When you’ve worn out your Dad’s Bob Dylan, Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash albums, check out Brighton, MA for restless rock and roll that’s reminiscent of Southern rock giants with a modern edge.
Conjuring homesick nostalgia and an evocative elsewhereness, Chicago’s Brighton, MA, named after singer Matthew Kerstein’s birthplace, offers lovely, warm arrangements that recall a late 1960s country rock sound. Steeped in the past, Amateur Lovers is a journey forward from the homes we can’t go back to, crackling with intensity on their anthemic first single “Underground” among others.
With his raw, earnest vocals sounding at times like the Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser and at others like Dylan or David Bowie, Kerstein’s delivery, straddling decades of musical influences, lends a timeless urgency to the album. On “Not Our Fault” the nostalgic sentiment becomes a wake-up call for the music industry: “Turned from art to business men/Forgot the war/Before it began,” yearning for the sincerity and resonance of 60s and 70s era rock that has since been commoditized.
The shift from Side A to Side B, while still evoking a yearning for timelessness in their sound, format and lyricism, also marks an emotional shift from the summery lightness and slide guitars of “Sunblinded” to the wintry darkness of “The Flood” and “Eskimos.”
Their nostalgic sound is undercut by a cynicism of 21st century bards who have seen revolutionary rock and roll fail futilely but cannot rest. What feels most natural and familiar about this album, besides the lovely guitars and plaintive vocals, is a restless spirit that drives their ever-evolving vision of modern rock and roll to the edge.
--Jenna Glass [October 25, 2008]
