Murray Attaway is the first to admit it’s been a minute. Throughout the ‘80s, he fronted the wildly underrated Georgia jangle pop band Guadalcanal Diary and put out his first solo album in 1995. “I kept meaning to do another record, but I’m easily distracted,” he says. “It took me a while to focus.”
In the three decades between that solo debut, In Thrall, and the latest releaseTense Music Plays, Attaway found time to briefly reunite Guadalcanal Diary in the late ‘90s and again for a one-off show in 2011, he formed a new band with former bandmate Jeff Walls to play some of their old songs and some cool covers, he pulled together a podcast about a fictional band, and even scored some movies. And eventually, he did not get around to finishing that second solo album after about 30 years.
Tense Music Plays is the exact album fans of Attaway, and his earlier output have been waiting for. There are enough songs here that sound like his old band to satisfy that infinite wait for one more Guadalcanal Diary album and plenty of tracks that build on that foundation while adding in plenty of new elements, to sound unique enough for a solo effort. “Never Far Away” is a beautiful stripped-down ballad (something his earlier band was not known for), while “Old Christmas” is as beautifully bizarre as 1989’s “Vista.”
The album opener, “Breath,” and “Hole In The Ground,” are straight-up rock songs, while the slower, mellower “Better Days” is an obvious standout moment on the record. Expectedly, without the benefit of a full backing back, this album is a bit more stripped down but just as impressive as his earlier catalog.
At just eight songs, Tense Music Plays is not the ego-soothing triple album release one might suspect from a record three decades in the making. Instead, Tense Music Plays is a fantastic representation of why Guadalcanal Diary was such a great, quirky pop/rock band, and hopefully serves as a place holder for more music coming from Attaway. He’s been out of the picture for a long time, but Tense Music Plays is the ideal vehicle to reintroduce him to listeners.
