{"id":5748,"date":"2009-01-10T03:52:08","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T03:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/?p=5748"},"modified":"2019-07-10T04:41:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T04:41:37","slug":"blues-revue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/review\/blues-revue\/","title":{"rendered":"Blues Revue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The confident, muscular&nbsp;<em>Eyes of the City<\/em>&nbsp;testifies to Vince Agwada\u2019s experience as a musician, songwriter, and producer. It\u2019s a back-to-basics slab of modern Blues with a gritty Chicago edge. The slick (but not too slick) album opener \u201cIt\u2019s a Shame\u201d gives listeners an idea of what to expect. Agwada\u2019s rhythm section is top-notch, particularly on \u201cDoes it Really Matter?\u201d where perky music contrasts with gloomy lyrics, and \u201cBottle,\u201d where drummer Brian Jones plays a curiously timed shuffle that almost sounds backwards. Agwada\u2019s guitar work is another strength, and he can be forgiven for getting showy at times: He\u2019s been in the business long enough to have earned it and is good enough to pull it off. The simple structure of the instrumental \u201cI\u2019m Coming Home\u201d gives Agwada plenty of room to cut loose, and he stretches out on the slower numbers too, especially \u201cEllie\u201d and \u201cHard to Cry\u201d. Most of the lyrical themes run in time-honored courses: finding love, losing it, pretending to have it, and not wanting it. Agwada does get slightly political on \u201cTubed Out,\u201d in which an aural collage of recent news broadcasts serves as a backdrop for a complaint that the world has become too complicated \u2014 possibly the first ever Blues song about information overload. The title track is the exception to this album\u2019s overall tone; with programmed rhythm tracks and a bowed upright bass backing a somber, reflective meditation on an urban night, it\u2019s both a love song and a plea in a sadder, quieter mode than the rest of the satisfying&nbsp;<em>Eyes of the City<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2013Genevieve Williams \u2013&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bluesrevue.com\/\">Blues Revue<\/a>&nbsp;January 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The confident, muscular&nbsp;Eyes of the City&nbsp;testifies to Vince Agwada\u2019s experience as a musician, songwriter, and producer. It\u2019s a back-to-basics slab of modern Blues with a gritty Chicago edge. The slick (but not too slick) album opener \u201cIt\u2019s a Shame\u201d gives listeners an idea of what to expect. Agwada\u2019s rhythm section is top-notch, particularly on \u201cDoes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5749,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions\/5749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}