A Full Length Album Release from
Michael Landgarten and The Converts
An album release from Michael Landgarten and The Converts comes through with a wonderfully built soundscape that blends elements of southern rock, classic rock, and Americana.
The songs are flush with amazing guitar work, both acoustic and electric, and songs that most certainly come from authentic places, painting pictures as they unfold, and giving you an idea of the band's many influences and how it gets put together to create something that feels genuine, warm, and even cinematic at times.
Country and Americana are some of the stronger influences on the record, in my opinion. The first track on the record is called "Falling In and Out", which is a song that features a lot of southern twang and tremolo effect on the guitar work, giving it the classic country undertone, and you also get a good grasp of some of the energy that the record gives off as well.
This is one of the best songs to actually open the record up with because it gives you an idea of what you may expect. You get that robust vocal approach, the storytelling, some descriptive kind of lyrics, amazing guitar work that lets the song flow and helps portray and display particular southern aesthetics, and just a beautiful approach to songwriting.
Now, this is definitely an album you want to listen to all the way through because again, a lot of the songs tell stories, and you don't want to miss out on any of that, plus the fact that there are a few surprises around its corners, along with some different aesthetics.
The record is called The Long Highway, and its title track also pushes that great country feel, especially in the vocal portrayal. The vocals have that southern twang as well, giving you a lot of that country influence, while the guitars are mainly acoustic, along with an electric one that lays over top, and you do get this sort of folk influence in here too.
Meanwhile, songs like "Symbolize the Devil" feel almost theatrical, filmic, and vast. This song displays a little bit of a dark overtone and has a great mood attached to it. I love the absolute classic rock feel of this track. It's almost like a song that was released in the late seventies.
A bit more of that live performance vibe comes through, especially on songs like this one. It feels like they all recorded it at once in the room. They seem to be bouncing off of each other, energy-wise, and it creates that live effect.
The guitars have a reverb effect on them, but it's a very sort of in-room, closer kind of feel, adding to the live performance aspect of it all.
Songs like this still have that southern tonality lurking in their underbelly. But on the forefront, it feels much more classic rock in my opinion.
"Your Car" is definitely a warmer-style song, getting back to that country feel with full-bodied guitar work, held-out notes that feel deep in tone, and loads of great harmonies that are reminiscent almost of gospel in a sense.
I love how they bring in the backing vocals at certain points in the record because it thickens things up.
A lot of the record does get pretty personal and again, tells some great stories with detail enough for you to totally connect with it. Plenty of the record has a cleaner feel. It's not a heavy rock style at all. However, every once in a while you get songs that have a little bit more edge.
One of those is "All Day Long", which most certainly has a harder-hitting southern rock vibe to it. The riffs are bendy and soulful, the drums are heavier, the energy is up, and it's really easy to get into songs like this.
They have great grooves and become very quickly addictive.
This track really jams hard, and I found it to be very refreshing.
"Aurora" breeds what I consider to be a perfect balance between classic rock, elements of folk, and Americana.
For some reason, this song makes me think of a classic Bob Dylan track. I think it's the way he's singing on this one.
This is another thing I need to touch on. This record displays Michael's ability to sort of adapt to the style of the song that he's creating. Songs like this let him sing in more of a classic rock manner, while other tracks that have more of a country feel let him lean into that southern tone vocally.
He falls right into character depending on the song, and I found that to be borderline genius.
As I mentioned before, there are loads of surprises here, and you should definitely soak all of this in at once.
Dip into this record now, and you'll see exactly what I mean.
The Long Highway - Album by Michael Landgarten and The Converts | Spotify
