NOWHERE NEAR POUGHKEEPSIE by GREG LYON
— Frozen Roses —
— Breaking Their Own Spines —
— Nowhere Near Poughkeepsie —
— Industrial Park —
— What Have We Come To —
— Papal Bull —
— Spitting Distance —
— Lying To Myself —
— Trainwreck —
— You Watch Me Sway —
— The Best Of Times —
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MDRF019 | DEC 2010| 41:30 | FULL LENGTH CD
Rare is the album that simultaneously sounds like a bracing debut and the lived-in work of a grizzled guy who’s been around the block a few times. But this brilliantly bleary, restlessly free-roaming collection of songs from local music veteran Greg Lyon feels both fresh and familiar: an unburdening of pent-up impulses that bubbled and scraped during his days spent in stylistically divergent local bands such as Pending Disappointment, Kipper Tin, and the Beatings, among others.
“I don’t want to hear songs about love,’’ Lyon sings sourly on the brusque, Bob Mould-ian “Trainwreck,’’ a brisk dart through a ’90s indie-rock playbook of clotted guitars and rehearsal-space production. “I want to hear about the bad times and nights in the ruts.’’ And so we do, over the course of a record whose hours for bruised reflection seem to hover somewhere around 3 or 4 a.m. Or, in the case of the hungover haze of the title track, a few hours later, after the “flask has turned up empty’’ amid the stagger-step of a saloon piano and Lyon’s foggy J Mascis-meets-Grandaddy croak.
Best-laid plans curdling into bitter memories (“What Have We Come To’’); better days deserting nowhere towns (“Industrial Park’’); and a resigned regard for a palpable, if melodically pretty, malaise (“Lying to Myself’’) are just a few of the cheerful topics under consideration here. Sounds about right for 4 a.m. in Poughkeepsie — or anywhere else for that matter.
— Jonathan Perry, the Boston Globe
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“We can't cite you chapter and verse everything that multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and Boston scene stalwart Greg Lyon has done in the last five years or so that we've been aware of his work. But we can tell you that his forthcoming solo set Nowhere Near Poughkeepsie -- whose songs are characterized in promotional materials as stuff that wasn't a good fit for the many, many bands he's played with -- is terrific, from the Grandaddy-esque title track to the stripped strut of the trebly rocker "Trainwreck." The 11-song record, largely recorded in a practice space with whichever cohorts were on hand, will be released by the mighty Boston and New York label concern Midriff Records on Dec. 4. A record release show is slated for the same night at P.A.'s Lounge in Somerville, MA, with support from rising noise rock foursome Soccermom.
The December release date likely means Nowhere Near Poughkeepsie will be passed over as a contender for many year-end lists. Which is a shame, because the depth and breadth of the often sadly beautiful (particularly the ballad "The Best Of Times"), always carefully appointed indie rock Mr. Lyon collects here is worthy of more attention than we fear it will get. The songs eschew the literal and figurative heaviness of Lyon's work with Pending Disappointment, and are more tightly focused and tuneful than what we recollect from his work with other Midriff bands including Spanish Armada. — Jay Breitling, Clicky Clicky