Music Review - `The Long Road Home ` by Kevin Deal (bm)
- Details
- Category: Music Reviewer - BobbyM
- Hits: 1251
Kevin Deal - The Long Road Home (click on image to watch video)
21 April 2019
Texas country singer and songwriter Kevin Deal’s album The Long Road Home shares his love of regional music traditions and his Christian faith across 14 new recordings.
Deal, a veteran recording artist and collaborator with Lloyd Maines (the father of the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines), takes it slow on his musical lamentation of self-destruction, “If You Can’t Put It Down”—a PSA of sorts against alcohol and other vices. He broods a little with “A Reckoning,” a gloomy tale of sin’s wages that could’ve suited Johnny Cash’s American Recordings output. Speaking of Cash, Deal also acknowledges his inspirations with covers of “Ring of Fire” and Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.”
It’s not all doom and gloom, with “Broken Upon the Rock” capturing the foot-stomping church music that’s always paired well with Hellfire and brimstone preaching. Likewise, “Keeping the Faith” champions the Christian life as a means of continuous comfort in a troubled word. Instead of just covering a few familiar hymns or songs of praise, Deal goes in-depth as to why religion helps him maneuver through our current socio-political situation.
Throughout the album, Deal celebrates the interlocking worlds of country, folk, Americana and gospel music as unmatched means to share feelings of love, loss, regret and redemption. These universal themes face us all, with or without the benefit of personal faith or a creative outlet to help cope with the negatives and shout hallelujah over the positives. Just like the Maines family and other mainstays of Texas music, Deal relates to others’ emotions through stories that’re personalized yet relatable.
