Customer Reviews

Box Lunch

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every song on this CD is excellent. It's passionate all-acoustic blues and roots rock. Koda's big gravelly voice and songwriting talent blew me away. The liner notes say he recorded it over a four-day period at a friend's studio. Anyone who can produce something like this in four days is a genius. I don't know how I managed to miss this when it first came out, and I wish I hadn't.

Step aside, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger and so on--this is the voice of America. Classic roots rock and blues, straight from the heart (or the gut). Cub's voice sounds like the voice of a man who's smoked several hundred thousand cigarettes, got run over by a tractor, and thinks he might lose the one woman he loves. What a voice. Powerful stuff. Powerful lyrics. Amazing guitar work too.

CUB KODA-BOX LUNCH: A stark, dark, and "outta the park" performance from ex-BROWNSVILLE STATION frontman CUB KODA, who turns down the volume as he turns up the pathos for this true solo effort; his yearning gutbucket rasp is accompanied only by a lonesome acoustic guitar and the occasional harmonica tweak. Song titles DOUBLE BARREL HELL and MY LUCK'S GONE ALL TO BAD hint at the album's low-down 'n dirty blooze theme, a longtime KODA forte stamped with his craggy HOWLIN' WOLF-channeled delivery. GIMME TRASH is the rare light-hearted ditty here, namechecking TV LAND and greasy fries, while HOW COULD LIFE TURN OUT THIS WAY is a fitting epitaph for the CUBMASTER, who died shortly after this album's release. That a cat could be so "semi-mental" on SMOKIN' IN THE BOYS ROOM and so sentimental on BOX LUNCH is truly a thing to marvel at.

RATING: FIVE FRONT PORCHES