Paint The Morning Gone
artist: Chris Merola
Yonder Records

Paint the Morning Gone is singer/songwriter Chris Merola’s third release, two under his name, one with the NYC based indie  roots quartet, RAIN DEPUTIES.

As with his previous endeavors, Merola’s Paint the Morning Gone invokes natural images similar to those of famed  artist, Edward Hopper, with conclusions, however, a bit  darker, and less innocent .   Merola’s songs germinate in simple  landscapes of ordinary American  life-street corners in small towns, long stretches of endless roads in the flatlands, lonely and longing boys and girls drinking beer in the woods and eventually in taverns, flies buzzing and summer sweat soaked shirts.  No beach boardwalk love affairs, no engine revving working class heroes from New Jersey here.  Simple folks, in any town,  whose main streets become mainlines, whose boredom descends patiently into painful lifelong depression, and whose dreams hightail it outta town as quickly as they arrived.  You get the feeling that Merola had been spying on these characters their entire lives, and wants to share his observations with us.

	 Of course, all of this upbeat commentary on the meaning of life manages to find its brightness and strength in the music itself, which leans heavily upon Nashville-meets-the-tube- amp.  Song forms and stylistic influences are perfectly American, pre-dating pop influences, going directly to the source, in the hills, cities and towns, farmlands and back porches of an era gone by.   The recording is pristine, using a sensitive combination of modern instrumentation and recording technologies, with straight ahead acoustic guitar, upright piano and dobro.

	Merola’s gift for familiarity within the creative process easily draws the listener into his world.  You not only feel as if you have heard each song somewhere in your grandpa’s collection of Appalchain folk tunes, but you also feel as if you have met each character presented in some sort of past life-archetypes of  sad living.  

	This reviewer suspects that in his past life, Merola didn’t trust many people he grew up with, or at least didn’t trust this world’s ability to give them a hand to overcome hardship, which is why the last song on the disk, Color Inside, provides such an ironic hopeful message of unconditional love.  

	But there is one thing you can trust-a full and loud listen to Pain the Morning Gone will get your foot stomping and your brain rumbling, with a vicarious need to accompany Merola on his next spy mission into the American countryside.
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Tumbleweed Mile is a trio of fine players that have their sound in roots, blues, twang and alt-country. But don’t be too quick to stick them in a shtick pigeonhole. The songs definitely have the feel of some edges worn down and some guitar fronts worn smooth from playing. There has been some whiskey drunk, regrets formed and hearts filled.

There has also been some fine songwriting. These are definitely poet cowboys more than cowboy poets.

The songwriting is largely Chris Merola who also lays a lot of guitars and lots of other things that have strings. Peter Wilson joins him on drums and Fred Gillen, Jr. fills out the bottom end of the sound. They remind me quite a bit of Ezra Thomas, a duo from Austin I’m crazy about.

The arrangements are appropriately sparse with lots of space for thinking and feeling while listening. Track 4, “Detour” is one of my favorites and happens to have some amazing pedal steel added by John O’Hare.

Fans of Wilco, Tom Petty, Olds 97s and the like will love Tumbleweed Mile.
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