The mixes allow ample peripheral space around each instrument.

Big, round, warm & fuzzy guitar tones are featured throughout. Elaine Summers contributes heart-breaking backing vocals. Neil Young’s, “Helpless” would fit comfortably on this record, and if Leonard Cohen had grown up in Washington state during the heyday of FM radio, he might have written the suicide-watch slow grinder “4th of July.” By the way, it really takes balls to bury the best song on the record in the #8 slot - “Hardest Thing to Do” simmers with desperation in the verse until it boils over with longing in the chorus.

“Straylin Street” evokes the vocal stylings of the late Ronnie Van Zandt (think, “Simple Kind of Man”). Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers echo all over this quasi-radio track. “If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself)” is as touching a call for help/marriage proposal as I’ve heard. Sounds like: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Replacements, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Old 97sĭeeper Thoughts: If you’ve got the fever for more cowbell, look no further than the single from this debut release by one of the less-celebrated artists to come out of the Pacific northwest during this period. A mid-tempo walk through the Hall of Fame of radio-rock styles with beefy, vintage guitar tones. Necktie Second is classic-rock songcraft from the heart, transmitted through a delicate, fragile brain. The Skinny: During the 1990s, if someone’s cat wrote a song by walking on a Casio keyboard - as long as it happened in Seattle - that shit got recorded and released.

Pete droge necktie second