Away Team

Git er done…. Oh wait this is a different kind of Blue Collar Man.  The kind whose hard work and determination gained him multi-platinum status as a solo artist, yet still made the gamble of a lifetime 14 years ago by joining the legendary STYX.  A gamble that was sure to pay off, as the frontman in the longest running line-up ever for STYX, Lawrence Gowan is living the dream that even the most successful musicians still dream about.  Recently, I caught up with Lawrence during a tour stop in San Antonio, TX (just like the famous song), where we spoke about everything from Chuck Panozzo to Children of Bodom.  Oh, and don’t worry about having to actually read this time around, just click the play button below, sit back with a frosty one, and enjoy…

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For more info on STYX, including Tour Dates visit the band’s official website here.   Special thanks go out to Lawrence Gowan for so graciously giving me his time, and to Amanda Cagan at ABC PR for making it all happen.

FOF/EMI

Rating:  8.5 out of 10

Ice Hockey, Molson, Rush, Evans Blue???  That’s right, the next great import from Canada is here.  EVANS BLUE first impacted our eardrums in 2006 with their smash hit “Cold (But I’m Still Here)” from their debut album The Melody and The Energetic Nature of Volume.  After a mediocre follow-up effort, the boys from Toronto parted ways with singer Kevin Matisyn and headed south of the border for his replacement Dan Chandler.  And in his first album with the band, Dan proves that he was worth the price of the passport.

 The album kicks off with the hard rocking “Buried Alive”, merely using it as a warm-up for the aural assault that is the radio hit “Sick of It”.  EVANS BLUE continue the onslaught with such tracks as “The Future in the End” and “A Step Back”, before hitting us with…a guest appearance from Three Days Grace???  Not quite, but “Say It” could easily have been a track that would be comfortably at home on their fellow Ontarians’ “Life Starts Now”. 

Soon after the influence heads south of the border again…way south.  I honestly almost checked the liner notes for a guest appearance from Carlos Santana when I heard the guitar in first minute of “Who We Are”.  And then… possibly the best track on the album, radio hit number two, “Bulletproof” shows us why Dan Chandler is destined to take this band to the next level.  Keeping with the head bobbing atmosphere, we delve into “I Blame You”, in which guitarist Parker Lauzon takes out his frustrations for the Toronto Maple Leafs’ futility on his strings.

Things are taken down a notch on the mid-tempo “Can’t Go On”, but keep in mind, I said “a notch”.  As we saw in the beginning EVANS BLUE like to hit us with a little teaser before kicking our asses with the finale that is “Erase My Scars”.  There is no doubt that this album will “erase my scars” from listening to the band’s prior effort, The Pursuit…, and make me listen until my ears turn a shade of blue…EVANS BLUE.  This album comes very highly recommended.

EVANS BLUE‘s self titled third album hits stores in the U.S. tomorrow, July 27th.  For more info on EVANS BLUE, including tour dates, and to purchase the album, visit http://www.evansblue.com/