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Graham Guest is an attorney by trade that has decided against skinny-dipping with other sharks, and instead, wears his butt-naked heart on his sleeve in a band called Moses Guest. Moses, who incidentally was a Confederate soldier and kin to Graham, is buried in my current Northeast Georgia neck of the woods. The band is from Texas, the country I grew up in, where I was schooled in lessons of dirt weed and girls that go to a little school in San Marcos. After a listen to the groups recently released Guest Motel (Aufheben Records), even the uninitiated casual listener will notice unusual things they have in common with this philosophical, feel-good act from Houston. On the ten-song effort they rein in the gratuitous noodling found on earlier efforts without sacrificing musicianship and instead showcase the band's penchant for solid
songwriting.
The pleasant addition of the pedal steel, along with Graham's distinct vocals--conjuring memories of the flannel-clad, dragon-chasing Layne Staley--set-up "Preposterous Box" and all its vague and ambiguous country carnival splendor. In less than 45 minutes Motel manages to introduce the latest incarnation of the band while still paying homage to their roots. Long-time fans will certainly stumble upon the déjà vu of stellar moments from live impromptu jams that have been fleshed out into solid songs. "It's our Love," for instance, seems to have been born of a prelude to the early MG rocker "100,000 Times."
Album highlights abound, but you'll be hard pressed to find a stronger dose of abstract existentialism than on "2 of Everybody." Here the keys and strings weave a web around the surreal notion that, "I think everybody is living twice / You are another body in this very life." Graham hollers "So long!" like a disgruntled Charles Whitman in "Victim of Hours." Whether the band intended for it to or not, the song rocks like a not so subtle read between the lines attack on the Austin scene, and reveals the inferiority complex long suffered by Houston bands trying to carve a name for themselves in the shadows of the capital. The acoustic, soon-to-be classic "Jackson" is a "one for the road" weary man's anthem that exposes the mixed feelings inspired by endless miles of highway livin' and lovin'.
Guest Motel encourages the close listen, and could be the soundtrack of summer with its intelligent, easy to swallow songs. At last, our nation's fourth largest city exports a legitimate audio experience.
David Eduardo
JamBase | Georgia
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