Album Notes

In the spirit of Prince's "The Truth" album and Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" performance comes BABYLON, the new acoustic album by soul rocker Bryan Thomas.

Recorded live to tape (analog!) in a single day in August 2003, the album features Thomas backed by Bob Buckley and Matthew Loiacono of Albany, NY punk bluegrass quartet Kamikaze Hearts pounding out seven heart wrenching songs inspired by bombs over Baghdad and the birth of a baby girl.

"Sure, I'd call the album a love song to America," says Thomas. "But not the blind love that's been going around of late. This is something deeper. This is seven songs of tough love."

And that it is.

It's tough love on the bluesy album opener "Around1" where Thomas calls out the "Miss America" pictured on the album cover as a cheating lover who "swings her behind like she knows it's too big for the Planet Earth."

It's tough love on the title track "Babylon," where Thomas testifies with lyrics stolen from the Book of Revelation, his fire-and-brimstone "Hallelujah" melody grafted over a driving acoustic-rock, country-gospel groove.

And it's tough love on the album-closing spoken word descent into Hell "Around2," where Thomas channels Saul Williams, Richard Pryor, T.S. Eliot and his own father, the late Rev. Willis Thomas III.

"Yes, I'm the son of a preacher man," he says. "Which probably explains a lot of where I'm coming from with these songs."

He laughs. "And all of the songs that came before them."

ABOUT BRYAN THOMAS

Soul rocker Bryan Thomas is a punk clown fool from New York's capital city of Albany. BABYLON is his new, live acoustic album.

The Albany Times Union named him "Best Male Singer-Songwriter" shortly after he released his acoustic hip-hop debut "Radio Plastic Jennifer" in 1999.

The follow-up soul rock epic "Ones and Zeros" was Metroland Magazine's "Album of the Year" in 2002.

He was recently in the studio with punk legend Tommy Ramone, making a special guest appearance on a track produced by Ramone for New York City's genre-smashing neo-punksters Collider.

Thomas' music can be heard on the opening track of the Black Rock Coalition's "Bronze Buckaroo Rides Again," which also includes a track by BRC founder/ Living Colour guitar wizard Vernon Reid.

He has three songs on the double-live "Pazfest: A New Orleans Tribute to Joni Mitchell," recorded on a steamy Louisiana night at the Howlin' Wolf in the summer of 2000.

Samples of Thomas' music, video and poetry can be found online at his award-winning web site bryanthomas.com, and at TheHiddenCity.com, a webzine for underground arts in Albany, New York. Thomas is a founding member of the Hidden City collective.