3 Comments

1. Bryan Beck says:

   March 30, 2010 at 10:10 am

   I never heard of R. Lamontagne
   
   before I was buying a Gatemouth
   
   cd and Amazon pushed his cd with
   
   5 star reviews, so I said maybe
   
   another wonderful musician I missed.
   
   No, he’s not. All the songs are
   
   slow, boring, whiney, nasally
   
   sung tributes to Satan and Evil,
   
   masquerading as blues.
   
   Satan is on the jacket, in the
   
   blurb inside, and in songs
   
   as the hero. At least Robert
   
   Johnson got some talent for his soul,
   
   Ray got Nuttin. Avoid this
   
   10 song lemon.
   
   Rating: 1 / 5
2. cordy says:

   March 30, 2010 at 10:52 am

   I did not end up receiving my order although I did receive a refund. I would not order from this seller again.
   Rating: 1 / 5
3. amanda chessa says:

   March 30, 2010 at 10:59 am

   a nice display of “white” soul-ish, dirty folk-r/b pop. it doesn’t seem to me that he’s van morrison at all, more like the band, and he sounds like ryan adams (he’s wonder-full!!!). he’s got an interesting story, kind of helps his media marketing.. worth picking up but not that incredible.
   Rating: 3 / 5
4. Adam says:

   March 30, 2010 at 11:08 am

   Ray LaMontagne is not a genius. `Trouble’ is, however, a reasonably good debut album. His music is listenable, but it is the same sound for ten tracks. By itself, any song on the album seems compelling, but when listened to in its entirety, the record betrays LaMontagne’s limitations as a songwriter. Hopefully he will grow in this respect, because at this point his lyrics are pretty trite and the structure of his songs is monotonous. His voice is gravelly and soulful, but at times the soulfulness recalls Michael Bolton more than Otis Redding.

   The album’s earthy quality (including the faded cover art) is also quite contrived; it is the musical equivalent of Starbucks. If you aren’t too discerning, you may forget that this is a major label album. In spite of the almost incessant airplay on Seattle’s KEXP, hipsters should proceed with caution. Any resemblance this album has to indie rock is purely coincidental; LaMontagne has more in common with Ben Harper than Daniel Johnston. If you’re into Bongo drums and doobies, then I guess that’s fine, but I think LaMontagne’s music is only gonna get more VH-1 as time goes by. If you’re in your thirties and want some innocuous background music for when you invite your advanced degree holding friends over for dinner or if you’re in your twenties and have a North Face fleece and say `sweet’ all the time, then this is probably the album for you. However, the record is not breaking new ground in any area, the songwriting is mediocre, and the vocals, lyrics, and music are all calculated.

   Sam Beam (aka Iron and Wine) gets my vote for the most important singer-songwriter to emerge in the past five years. I want to like Ray LaMontagne, but his album is flawed in too many ways, and there is little indication that future work will be an improvement.
   Rating: 3 / 5
5. vegetarian4life says:

   March 30, 2010 at 2:07 pm

   Just got the CD today in the mail. Rushed to work and popped it in the office player. Within minutes all the laughing people were depressed and the sun just wasn’t shining as brightly as before. A true downer.
   Rating: 2 / 5