Artist: Anthony Gomes
Title: Music is the Medicine
Writer: Rick Galusha
The latest album by Anthony Gomes, Music is the Medicine’ leans heavily into the rock genre with just the occasional whisper to blues. Produced by uber-dialman Jim Gaines this good time party album sounds wonderful. Gomes’ songs are well paced, highly textured and more about the song than the flash. Interestingly Gomes uses his latest platter to approach contemporary issues such as war, ‘War on War,” co-written with Mark Selby, and universal peace. Granted his lyrics aren’t providing any fodder for grey matter when he sings, “How different can we really be, From the colors of the war machine, Where the blood is red and the money’s green.” However simplicity set against the pulsing push of the band and Gomes’ doodling guitar sound-texturing is admittedly cool.
On the next track, “Love is the Answer” Gomes revs up a faux-gospel sing-a-long anthem that evokes, “People all over the world, Come together, Rise Up, Take a Stand, We got the power in our hands, Understand, Love is the Answer.” Okay, John Lennon he isn’t but he’s making in-roads to issues and singing about something other than back door love and clichéd bluesman braggadocio. Gomes uses the building crescendo to step out of the moment in order to take a tasty nylon string guitar solo only to come back with a well paced guitar solo that will lend itself kindly to live performances.
Gomes’ latest is a highly polished rock n’ roll record that breaks into a “play that funky music white boy” with the song, ‘Everyday Superstar.’ Superstar is a toe-tapping commercial ‘70’s radio friendly soul sound with rock overtones and rich melody lines. On “Testify” Gomes revs up a Kiss-like-riff and a ‘party all night’ when he sings, ‘Kick the door open let the party begin...We’re going right for your ear hole, Then we’re gonna penetrate your soul.” So its not art: put this one in your guilty pleasures stack, clear the chairs out of the room and grab your tennis racket. Its fun, it has a positive message, its far from art and its packed with energy. This is a, ‘roll-down-the-windows-and-let-wind-blow-through-your-hair’ album that fills a niche… but it ain’t blues.
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