"Lifeboat reveals a songwriter who knows how to manipulate his audience by balancing seamy imagery with catchy, often playful melodies . . . the bleak philosophical outlook that informs Lifeboat is belied by Shows' deadpan delivery and a grab bag of musical styles that make the CD easy to digest . . . Appropriately, his most disturbing tale here is also, in a way, his funniest . . . Throughout Lifeboat, Shows' rage is never so far below the surface that it goes unnoticed."
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"[Lifeboat] affirms once again Shows' artistic strengths-- a gift for melody, thoughful lyrics, clever arrangements, and a bare-bones rock and roll approach that manages to incorporate a variety of sounds and styles . . . and, for a work spread over so much time and so many places, Lifeboat works as a coherent whole."
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Hal Shows was my sophomore English teacher back in the *gulp* early eighties at Florida State.  A couple of years later, I saw his band play a house party at the "German Embassy" in Tallahassee, and I was hooked.  I used to run into him outside Beertown (he did a great song with the same name), where we drank quarts and talked about Neil Young and British pop, which was good at that time.  I'm long out of Tallahassee now, but I know I'll be pulled back someday, just like Hal was.  I can't wait to hear this CD, and I hope he's still playing his Jazzmaster on it.
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