A hugely enjoyable and melodic offering from established Texan band.
In the period 2010 to 2022, Texan band Left Arm Tan released six albums, at which point the years of touring and recording caught up with songwriter Daniel Hines, and a period of hiatus was necessitated by a number of surgical procedures that made playing the guitar impossible. Fuelled by imposed inactivity, Hines entered a period of intense writing, the most prolific of his career, and out of that period of abundance comes album number seven, When Tigers Smoked.
That strange and intriguing album title comes from the Korean expression meaning “once upon a time”, and the album reflects on mortality, resilience, and hope. These are songs of ordinary people with their lost roads, of both missed and second chances, of broken hearts, and of the bravery needed to, sometimes, just to keep carrying on. That resilience is demonstrated on the album’s closing track, Ordinary Guys, a beautifully realised and melodic number, a moniker that could be applied anywhere on this eminently enjoyable album. “And our fathers had their fathers’ wars to make them who they were. We just had the quiet weight of a hard day’s work. And showing up was every bit as brave as leaving ever was. Staying put weighed just as much as all that restless blood.”
Intriguingly, there are two versions of the same song. Amsterdam is up-tempo and upbeat, with a prominent violin intro that reprises throughout, while Amsterdam II is a much more laid-back affair with a distinct twang replacing that violin. Comparisons with early Eagles at their most harmonic, with feet firmly in the country, wouldn’t go amiss here. It is a beautiful version that has you reaching for the lyric sheet to confirm that it is, indeed, the same track.
If harmonies and melodies are your thing, then there is nothing not to love here. The bass riff on Heartbreak Again combines with Mark Belding’s steel guitar and Hines’ immaculate vocals to great effect. It is a bass riff, courtesy of Jeff Scroggins, that returns to accompany the mariachi-like brass on Rolling Under The Stars. It is one of a number of highlights on an album that certainly isn’t short of them.
If When Tigers Smoked is your first encounter with Left Arm Tan, then it is going to be both a marvellous introduction and, maybe, if we were to steal the closing line from Casablanca, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
