Band Site: www.stcaitrecords.com/artists/kerowax/

 

What we have here is an interesting new band from the Dallas area. “Kerowax” is the debut album by The Jack Kerowax, a pop-influenced Americana band. The band originally started as singer/songwriter recording project by Johnny Beauford (guitar and lead vocals). Apparently the musicians that he assembled had such a great time playing together that they decided to make it a proper band and Garrett Padgett (guitar, keys, back. vox), Nathan Adamson (drums) and Nash Griggs (bass) came into the fold. The band then proceeded to hone their craft by taking weekly residency at a Dallas-area cafe. When they felt they were ready, they took the next step and went into the studio. This is where things get interesting. They decided to eschew the digital recording format and track the album old school, on proper analog tape. For those of us that still remember working with the format, it has warmer sonics and allows some instruments, especially drums and bass to gel better. The process also requires a better band preparation and allows for fewer edits, and for the most part the modern auto tune tricks and other studio gimmicks cannot be performed on tape, or if they can, the process is so lengthy that it is usually better to just redo the track. This all means that what we get here is a more honest band recording, presenting The Jack Kerowax in a realistic and honest format, as they truly sound. So, in the era of digital edits, voice manipulation and overall studio wizardry, The Jack Kerowax tracked the whole thing, start to finish on analog tape at Ferralog studios, and kudos to them! Personally, I think more bands should do it this way or at least use Pro Tools as an analog format, as time alignment, edits and other modern studio tricks kill the honesty of the performance, and while it sounds good, on the overall, the human brain can't be fooled that something is amiss., but back to “Kerowax”... The results the band achieved are phenomenal. I love the sonics, as well as the band interplay that is shown on this record. This will all be nill, if the songs weren't well written, but what we really have here is a great collection of tunes. There is a story behind each song, in a way the beatnik writers intended, and this is from where I guess the name “Kerowax” came from (Jack Kerouac – the beatnik author). The tunes that stood out to me are the ballad “Stella”, the more upbeat “Fancy Cigarette”, and the country rocker “Moonshine Barber”.

Great production, great song craftsmanship and excellent tunes get this album a 5 out of 5!

Reviewed by A. Dorian