★★★★★
He doesn't release albums often, but Kevin Gordon's notorious attention to lyrical wordsmithing and storytelling is well worth the time between releases. When you list Americana royalty like Buddy Miller and Lucinda Williams as fans, you are doing something right. That something is in full display on Gordon's first release in four years, one that divides acoustic and electric tracks equally. And, despite the Chuck Berry/J.J...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2015-09-04
★★★★★
This was Gordon's first album after a five year break from "Down to the Well." Louisiana native Kevin Gordon just up and felt the musical urge to get back in the studio. Recorded live in a home studio in east Nashville, the band's music captures the same impulsiveness and capriciousness that characterizes his life. His shows can often have great power and passion. "O Come Look at the Burning" has a raw and raucous personality...
- rootsmusicreport.com
2013-09-29
★★★★★
For several years, the highlight of any Kevin Gordon show would occur when he performed "Colfax." This self-penned tune about playing trumpet in the high school marching band under the tutelage of a black-skinned man in the South when the Ku Klux Klan pleasantly joins the spectators brims with sexual and racial tensions...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-03-26
★★★★★
Gloryland, Gordon's first album since 2005, serves as a reminder to what a wonderful writer he is. There's a powerful literary quality to his songs (he's a published poet) that often feels like short stories brought to life with music. The two standout tracks, "Colfax/Step In Time" and "Bus To Shreveport," are excellent examples of Southern fiction. The former, which runs over 10 minutes, recalls Gordon's time in a Southern high school marching band, which was led by a black man...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2012-02-16
★★★★★
Writing with thepoetry and economy of Dave Alvin and Lucinda Williams (whoguests on the title song of Down to the Well), the Louisiana roots-rocker Kevin Gordon returnswith more gritty portraits of the down-and-out who can't go homeagain. He evokes the scorching guitar intensity of Springsteen,an obvious influence on his songs of drunks, highway shootings,and the rusted rails of abandoned towns. B+
- ew.com
2011-03-03
★★★★★
Kevin Gordon is one of the best alternative country singer-songwriters working in Nashville today. The Northern Louisiana native constructs vivid narratives of life along the Mississippi River corridor. Gordon's debut Cadillac Jack's #1 Son is a diverse tour de force that explores many of the genres that have shaped and enriched country musichonky tonk, rockabilly, swamp boogie, and blues. "Fast Train" is a rip-roaring, good old-fashioned rock and roll song, while "Looking for the Killerman" ...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-20
★★★★★
Kevin Gordon's got a cool song on his latest album about an outsider artist named Joe Light, who drives a $500 car, has 10 kids to feed, and never has enough dough although his pictures sell for big money in the big city. The name Joe Light seems appropriate from a literary perspective. After all, art is about shadows and light. The title character is always light on cash...
- www.popmatters.com
2008-11-11
★★★★★
In early 1998, roots-rocker Kevin Gordon released his first proper full-length, and it's an intriguing blend of Americana: from honky-tonk country to '50s-style rockabilly and bayou swamp blues.
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
Singer/songwriter Kevin Gordon always had a few toes dipped in the swamp, but he dives into the murky waters on his third official album, and first in four years. The opening "Watching the Sun Go Down," with its thick, reverbed guitar and riff-based creep, could easily be a lost Creedence Clearwater Revival tune from the Bayou Country sessions. Gordon remains in that groove for the majority of this release, keeping the tempos on low boil and the humidity high...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
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