Cub KODA - Box Lunch 1997

Cub KODA - Box Lunch 1997
Label: J-Bird
Audio CD: (May 19, 1998)

Blues

Every song on this CD is excellent. It's passionate all-acoustic blues and roots rock. Koda's big gravelly voice and songwriting talent blew me away. The liner notes say he recorded it over a four-day period at a friend's studio. Anyone who can produce something like this in four days is a genius. I don't know how I managed to miss this when it first came out, and I wish I hadn't.
**
Step aside, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger and so on--this is the voice of America. Classic roots rock and blues, straight from the heart (or the gut). Cub's voice sounds like the voice of a man who's smoked several hundred thousand cigarettes, got run over by a tractor, and thinks he might lose the one woman he loves. What a voice. Powerful stuff. Powerful lyrics. Amazing guitar work too.
By  L. Hall.
**
Cub Koda has tried a lot of different things in his long career, but he has never made anything close to Box Lunch. It's not just that the album consists of nothing but acoustic material; he has never been this open with his emotions. There are a few rockers — "Double Barrel Hell" is menacing and "Gimme Trash" is a tongue-in-cheek kitsch celebration — but the heart of the record is in the ballads, whether it's the nostalgic "We Were Crazy Back Then," the yearning "Runaway Heart," or the lovely "How Could Life Turn Out This Way," which evokes the spirit of Hank Williams. Cub has rarely been this naked with his feelings and the results are frequently moving. And, to cap it all off, he throws out "Susan Hayward's Diary," a charming finger-picked instrumental. Moments like this make you hope that it's not the last acoustic album Cub will make — Box Lunch is so good, you wish there were seconds.
By Stephen Thomas Erlewine. AMG.
**
01. We Were Crazy Back Then 3:31
02. Double Barrel Hell 3:59
03. Too Much Pain 4:15
04. No Matter What You Say 4:24
05. How Could Life Turn Out This Way 3:37
06. Runaway Heart 3:20
07. Gimme Trash 3:44
08. My Luck's Gone All to the Bad 3:28
09. Susan Hayward's Diary 2:38
**
NoPassword
*
DLink
*