Saw*Kick Media

Every Hour is a Dollar Gone
Patrick Sweany

Jack Says: A-

Following up his stellar 2006 album C’Mon C’Mere, Massillon’s own Patrick Sweany recently released Every Hour is a Dollar Gone, a perfectly balanced collection of soulful ballads and rollicking foot-stompers all infused with Sweany’s well-honed backwoods pop sensibility. Produced by friend, occasional live bill partner and fellow 330-er Dan Auerbach, frontman of Akron-based The Black Keys, Every Hour showcases Sweany’s raw yet melodic fingerpicked guitar and his equally love-worn crooning. Where his past work might lean more so on his obvious Delta Blues influences, here Sweany shares his own take on ’70s guitar rock and Motown soul while never straying too far from the frenetic energy that had made Sweany’s live performances the stuff of local legend.

Every Hour’s greatest strength is its seamless shifting from Sam Cooke-esque serenades (“Hotel Women”) to pulsing instrumental jams (“Burma Jones”). For as many different genres and influences on display, the album is surprisingly consistent.

Recorded live with few, if any, overdubs, Every Hour falters only when ill-advised production distracts from the album’s otherwise charmingly unrefined feel. The album’s worst song, the ditty-ish “Two or Three,” suffers from exactly this, with Sweany’s vocals inexplicably filtered to sound as though they are coming through over a phone line. Thankfully, examples such as this are few and far between.

Sweany has, over the years, alternated between releasing albums as Patrick Sweany and The Patrick Sweany Band; in the case of Every Hour, the choice to do so under his name only was the right decision. Sweany is the star. His deep vibrato and slithering guitar fills frame perfectly songs whose topical matter, while little more than average blues fare – unrequited loves, general loneliness, the good old days – never fails to fresh and sincere in Sweany’s able hands.

Key tracks: “Hotel Women,” “From Orange to Pink,” “Think About It”
Check it out: www.myspace.com/patricksweany

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.