★★★★★
Chicago's Joe Pug is a workingman's singer-songwriter who is slowly building a reputable career by taking personal risks and endearing himself to those who have taken a shine to his soulful and introspective takes on self-realization and myth. He seems to innately understand the nuances of personal identity and has written eloquently on its turbulent affairs on his previous releases...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-06-25
★★★★★
"To meet me is to dare into the darkness," intones Joe Pug on his sophomore LP opener "Hymn #76." It strikes as both challenge and warning, a psalm leveled by the songwriter at himself and the listener. Now settled in Austin after garnering acclaim in Chicago following 2008 EP bow Nation of Heat and 2010's Messenger LP, Pug continues to develop a bolt of determination and sacrifice that paradoxically springs from a place of doubt...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2012-04-23
★★★★★
Joe Pug is living proof that even in the days of digital discombobulating, music biz implosion, and tidal waves of homemade albums by marginally talented artists on tiny labels, it's still possible to stand out if you've got an original voice and the determination to stay on the road 300 nights a year. The short backstory is that Pug dropped out of college in his senior year and moved to Chicago to make it as a singer-songwriter...
- www.crawdaddy.com
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Some things can be learned: how to pick a few chords on the guitar, how to shut your eyes while you sing, how to wince just so during the bridge to convey emotional weight. But unless your surname is Dylan, Waits, Ritter or Prine, you could face-palm yourself to death trying to pen songs half as inspired as the 10 tracks on Joe Pug's debut full-length...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2010-04-17
★★★★★
Troubadours tabbed as the next Dylan number by the generations now, yet 25-year-old Joe Pug, based out of Chicago, should make even the most sample-happy listener take note. Considering the title of this full-length debut, it follows that Pug is a man with something to say. With a touch of vintage R.E.M. on the title track, Pug pulls the deft trick of playing unseen listener to a female folksinger...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2010-03-19
★★★★★
Fathers throw around a lot of cliches, mainly because they're true. We spend lots of time pondering the sage-like life lessons we're going to bestow upon our children, and then we realize that it's often been better said by people smarter than ourselves. "Fortune favors the bold."--Terence "You make your own luck."--Hemingway, to his son "Get busy living or get busy dying."--Andy Dufresne, in The Shawshank Redemption Sometimes your kids listen...
- www.popmatters.com
2010-03-04
★★★★★
I've been burned out on folk music - an old favorite genre - for some time now. There seem to be too many two-bit, untalented hacks trying to pass themselves off in coffee shops, street fairs, and bars as the next great singer-songwriter. Add to that the overwhelming number of submission we receive here at DOA headquarters and it's hard to decide what to listen to from the stacks of CDs...
- www.adequacy.net
2009-07-21
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