MICHAEL McDERMOTT – St. Paul’s Boulevard (2022)
Music makes a deep connection when it strikes that delicate nerve separating the personal from the universal. If the listener can use the songs as mirrors, then the musician has succeeded in communicating their art. Chicago-based singer-songwriter MICHAEL McDERMOTT has spent decades riding that artistic balance, and he does it again with fresh potency on ”St. Paul’s Boulevard”, requested here by one of you.
McDermott isn’t a song & dance man, he’s a classic rocker that does the music he wants. This is American rock, with nodes to Bruce Springsteen to Tom Petty. Add John Hiatt to the list.
However, on ”St. Paul’s Boulevard” McDermott and his band sound is more muscular than the aforementioned acts, and while there’s ballads an acoustic numbers, the ‘nerve’ is there. No one’s going to say it doesn’t rock enough, or his ballads are syrupy. It’s…
