There’s a feeling of new beginnings at the start of Bound to Break, the new fourteen-track album from the Communal Well. It’s the sound of taking refuge, building back, and starting over. The sense I get is that it’s an album of healing, an album of recovery. Maybe that’s just my state of mind lately, or maybe it’s just what I need, but when singer songwriter Roger Hoeberichts opens the lead track, “Come In,” with “It’s getting late now, the sky is darkening, the wind is howling, why don’t you come in?” I immediately want to go wherever that voice is coming from and take shelter from whatever storms may be rocking my world at any given moment in ways big and small.

It helps, of course, that Hoebrichts sings the tune in a voice that strikes me as a weather-beaten combination of Bono (of U2) and Ray Davies (of the Kinks). I’m also hearing shades of Bob Dylan—his Blood on the Tracks and Desire era—in the vocal phrasing and instrumentation of the second track, “Virgil.” Things pick up a bit and move into rockier territory with the blues-inflected third track, “Sentimental Fool,” which sounds like something the Band might have recorded at the peak of their career. And while a track titled “Blood on the Tracks” suggests a clear nod to Dylan, it could easily be regarded as a long-lost Grateful Dead tune—so much so that I briefly started to wonder whether Jerry Garcia faked his death and changed his name to Roger Hoeberichts.

While a trio of covers certainly anchors the album in a bluesy idiom—a sublimely and seductively guttural take on Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning,” and a pair of Robert Johnson classics, “Walking Blues” and “Stones in My Passway”—what ties everything together is the sense that each tune is rooted in our shared humanity. We may be fragile at times, the album suggests in the harmonica-driven title track “Bound to Break” and in the storm-tossed cadences of a song titled “Alisa,” but we can find strength when we open our hearts and minds and make the decision to groove to good music together.

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About the Writer:

At any moment on any given day, you can find Marc Schuster engaging in any number of activities: assembling his weekly radio show, interviewing musicians for his blog, laying down drum tracks for various artists, rehearsing for the next show with Philadelphia-based power-pop band Scoopski (in which he plays bass), recording music for his own wide-ranging projects (solo and otherwise), experimenting with film and animation, or designing album covers and concert posters for fellow musicians. On top of all that, he’s full-time college professor with a healthy catalog of publications to his name, including a book on the Beach Boys’ Holland album and an illustrated children’s book titled “Frankie Lumlit’s Janky Drumkit.” Our beloved host of the Tweetcore Radio Hour here on AMS Radio is one to keep busy. Learn more about him and connect online:

Abominations Blog | Marc Schuster Official Website

thoughts from the editor:

When hearing “Bound to Break” the first time my initial impression was that I was hearing a multiverse where Bono fronting the Rolling Stones and I thought that was a pretty neat hybrid of sound. Marc as always drills right to the core in his review of what I was hearing and puts it in words that make me go, “ahh… yes!” Listen to Communal Well on AMS Spotify Playlists “The Bullpen 200,” “Indie Hour,” and “AMS Radio Blog.” And there’s a Bandcamper Alert a foot! Communal Well is a project you can support on Bandcamp HERE – which is always a platform we encourage listeners to check out as it’s one of the few direct-to-artist ways to support your favorite music.

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