Singer/songwriter Rocky Votolato began his career in the renowned Pacific Northwest emo group Waxwing, then ventured out for a solo career. Makers is his third solo disc and his first since 2003’s Suicide Medicine. With a background reminiscent of so many other neo-folk musicians including Iron and Wine, Whiskeytown and Mark Lanegan, Votolato doesn’t bring any encomium to the genre.
The first track, and by far the best is “White Daisy Passing,” an incandescent song with a melodic acoustic guitar, soft pensive vocals and lyrics about nostalgic love that transforms into a lullaby. From there Votolato’s voice becomes ragged, especially on “Portland is Leaving.” Integrating the staple harmonica, he sings: ‘Love is the only answer/everything is just a train wreck,’ before coupling the twangy alt-country with the Ryan Adams-tinged “Tennessee Train Tracks.”
All of Votolato’s songs encompass bucolic imagery of abandoned train cars and tracks, mining towns and simple small town life with booze-addled narratives (the album was named after a brand of whiskey.) He shares stories of shattered lives, cruel women and ruminations from the inner self. “Tinfoil Hats” offers the painful, ‘Life keeps on changing/tell it to stay but it won’t listen.’
Rocky Votolato shouldn’t be written off when if comes to earnest folk music, but most of the album is banal with not enough distinction between the songs. He is a fine songwriter and musician, but his music doesn’t burst to life like some of his more refined predecessors.
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