Today our “Trex Road” takes us to North Carolina, to Four Oaks. At the home of an artist who for more than 20 years has chosen the hard career of the independent musician and today after leaving his history band B Sides, he arrived at the third solo album. An artist of character, whose music cannot be easily catalogued, so many are the influences that permeate his music. He started playing guitar at a very young age and today he has reached a personal sound that has flowed into this EP, Prelude, composed of 7 beautiful pieces of American music to the core that are precisely what the name of the record tells us. A prelude to a real record that ours is recording these days. Don’t get me wrong this work does not miss anything, it is a real record. Full to the brim of passion and quality. You don’t have to go far, just press play and Gypsy Railroad will hit you right in the chest if you love the United States and its music. Organ, harmonic and electric guitar scratches, an enveloping trend between dust and boundless landscapes. And the voice? Friends the voice of Eric Strickland is a blow to the heart, soul but also country, intense and powerful. I could stop at the first piece and I would already be sure to have found another independent artist to add to my list of favorites, which I had not yet discovered on this side of the Ocean. But if I stopped, I couldn’t listen to the wonderful country ballad Drinkin Whiskey, with Billy Barbour’s steel-guitar guiding the dances, supporting Strickland’s vocal test that strikes the mark here too. The next Dixie is another ballad, intense and melancholic, the sound is perfect, the acoustic guitar and steel guitar duo is a real gem, the rhythm is on the piece but I repeat it is always the voice the secret. The central passage with increase of turns is always guided by the magic uvula of Eric, a real power. The Sweetest Thing is introduced by the piano, a ballad with a southern flavour, a reference to sounds of the past. To those melancholic and exciting ballads of the greats of the past, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Allman Brothers Band but also country in some passages. And that I tell you to do, the voice friends, the voice. She’s the plus of all the work. Did you want country rock? The one with a groove that takes your soul? Dirty guitars and killer riffs? Here’s Sweet Mandy Brown for you. Irresistible the rhythmic, a funny piece that flows into a beautiful double guitar solo very rock and roll. Beautiful. The work ends with the beautiful Time, an acoustic ballad where the band gives a really excellent performance, the organ, the acoustic guitar and the rhythmic support the beautiful voice of Strickland. Everything perfectly set, a really exciting song that the electric guitar solo makes almost perfect, cutting in an instant the tension created by the hypnotizing singing of this talented artist of Four Oaks, NC. If this is the Prelude, at this point we are eagerly waiting to hear the next musical step of this artist who gave us seven beautiful emotions, guided by his voice, real jewel. The advice is to discover Eric Strickland and his 3 albums but also to research those with the band B Sides, you will see and hear the artistic evolution of a true independent, which deserves success and to be discovered and listened to over and over again.
Good listening,
Trex Willer by http://www.ticinonotizie.it
(you can find original italian article at this link : https://www.ticinonotizie.it/eric-strickland-prelude-2021-by-trex-roads/ )
