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Tracklist (Vinyl)
| A1 | | Ashgrove | | 6:15 | | A2 | | Rio Grande | | 4:25 | | A3 | | Black Sky | | 4:48 | | B1 | | Nine Volt Heart | | 4:57 | | B2 | | Out Of Control | | 6:34 | | B3 | | Everett Ruess | | 4:51 | | C1 | | Sinful Daughter | | 4:28 |
See more tracks| C2 | | The Man In The Bed | | 4:35 | | C3 | | Black Haired Girl | | 5:25 | | D1 | | Somewhere In Time | | 5:54 | | D2 | | Highway 61 Revisited | | |
* Items below may differ depending on the release.
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Review
It's been six years since Alvin's last album of original material, and from the sound of Ashgrove, they've been long and tough ones. Reaching back for a past that doesn't exist, dying parents, dead-end lives, the anchorlessness of life on the road, the stop-the-clock fear of aging -- those themes are all over this album, delivered by Alvin's twixt-a-husk-'n'-a-croak voice. In places, it sounds rather like a rootsier Bruce Springsteen, in one of the Boss's more downbeat moods. Middle-aged rockers addressing middle-aged themes can be an honorable… Read More pursuit, but there's a resigned despondency that can make an entire album of such material a burdensome listen. Alvin does at least execute his laments with more grittiness than many of the storytelling country, folk and heartland rock musicians mining similar territory, taking a satisfying blink-and-you'll miss it swipe at organized religion in the best song, "Everett Ruess.
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