Randall Shreve - The Entertainer

By: Kendall | in: Music |

entertainer

Last we left with Randall Shreve he had a pretty amazing pop record with a bit of a conceptual feel to it. He’s back. This time the concept ideal is still in play, but he brings the level up a few notches by making it a vaudvillean, circus side-show, old Hollywood feel? Get the picture? If not, it’s worth a few spins. It’s a much darker and drunker swagger around than the first album. The impressive vocal/tonal quality is still there, but instrumentation structure has been doused in glamour, brandy, and moving pictures.

It all opens up with “Welcome to the Show” he lays out the plan right away. “Welcome to my show, it’s good to know, you don’t mind getting out of bed, at least to see what happens next. Welcome to my burlesque sideshow, I think you might need a bottle of wine to understand this sorry mess.”

“King of the Silver Screen” is the track that sets the pace after that. Laced in pianos and pumping tuba, your attention will be had. It all comes back down to earth a bit as you get to “The Girl Who Saved the World”, but this album won’t let you in any one place too long. “Deja Vu” will come at you next and make you feel like you should be dancing a romantic dance with a spanish girl with a flower in her hair.

And so it goes, in and out, and kind of all over. “The Entertainer” is the tale of a man who runs from love and follows his ambition to be an actor, only to find he cannot escape the inevitable. To keep with the feel of the album, much of his current tour is being held in theaters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG7PZK–jrg

[Subscribe to this feed]

Posted on January 21, 2009