HARVEY BARHAM - City Of Champions

Thanks to Not Lamer Dave Bundy for turning me onto this suprise release! There`s so much here, that`s hard to grab and grasp by listening to the soundbites, bu we will give it a go! Sir Bundy is an journalist for Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis and he offers up this assessment of City Of Champions.

"Not that I`m a communist, but Americana isn`t generally the description of my favorite music. I think it`s the whole thing about how everyone loves Wilco so much and I never got that into them. I like The Jayhawks and some others, but I`m probably not going to gravitate to that music if I want to sit down and listen to an entire album. But I stumbled across this guy, Harvey Barham, last night. The website below is hilarious now that I figured out it wasn`t for the real City of Champions, just the album. But it`s cleverly done. The In the News section is really links to the songs and their lyrics. The headline is a summary of the song, not its title. It is only 9 songs, but the lyrics are so evocative of life in a small town. And the hooks are incredibly powerful. You`ve got to check out Shocking Affair Exposed, the best song ever written about an Oedipus complex gone horribly awry, and Ray of Sunshine Appears, a wonderfully upbeat album closer. But every song here is incredible. I`m a news guy, so I don`t use exclamation points haphazardly. But this rocks! It`s one of those albums that you just have to listen to all at once, every song in order. Each song is great by itself. But the whole thing is greater than even the significant sum of its parts. I stayed up late last night listening to it over and over again. And as proof of how good it was, when I woke my wife up at 2 a.m. and forced my iPod earbuds on her, she listened and wasn`t even mad I woke her up when the song was over."

"8 out of 10. The alt.country slices of life on My Sweet Tragedy and Main Street are great songs with hook filled choruses and colorful lyrics. And this is where Barham excels, my favorite song here Some Are Just Happy is a sharp critique of Texas life sung with sweetness and smooth guitar. The weary ballad Nothin` I Do is a total resignation of everything, even admitting "you`re tired of this tune" which is a bit of Wilco bleakness and ELO violins that recall Mr. Kingdom a little. I kinda dug this one a lot too - it`s so damn honest. The latter half of this album also recalls The Honeydogs, as the songs get more into the town`s disintegration (Tired Of This Town), but it ends with the slightly hopeful Little One. Every song here is well written and the arrangements are superb. The albums dark undercurrent can get oppressive at times, but that`s the general theme here. The website is impressive too, as the city of Duncanville, TX is layed out in detail with sample streaming tracks for each news item listed. You have to remember this is about an album about life in this small Texas community. It could be any town in America now, even yours. So listen up."- PowerPopAHolic Blog. Get on board - City Of Champtions, while not for everyone here, IS something that many of you will revel in the discovery of! VERY Highly Recommended!

Song #1 - mp3

Song #2 - mp3

Song #3 - mp3

Song #4 - mp3