Avail / Tim Barry "Manchester"

When Tim Barry's second album "Manchester" arrived just a year after his strong first album, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was the work of a man inspired. On this album Tim takes all the strange and difficult experiences of the year prior and distills them through his trademark brutal honesty and penchant for great storytelling to come up with 12 tales of the mean cops, missed trains, wounded soldiers, joyful memories, passed friends, lost days, overdeveloped places, changed people, new beginnings and the constant struggle to make tomorrow better than today. There's a fair bit of darkness, rage, pain, and a dose of humor, but always a load of humanity in each of these songs. It's not very often that you can sit down and put on a record and feel like you're spending the night catching up with an old friend, but this record is exactly like that.

Recorded once again with Lance Koehler, this record keeps the feel of Tim's first album chugging along, including all of the friends and family we're all so well acquainted with from said record, but also shows that Tim's not afraid to broaden his familiar and distinctive acoustic folk style. Of course at it's heart the record is still just Tim and his guitar telling it like it is, but sometimes, in a deeper exploration of what he did on "Rivanna Junction," we're treated to a melancholic piano and violin driven ballad, or a soft, lilting country waltz, or a clever, swinging country-rock stomper; hell, even a New Orleans style brass band sneaks it's way onto the record. By the end of the record you begin to realize that despite the range he covers in these songs every single moment just sounds purely and sincerely like Tim, and no one else. Re-issued by Chunksaah Records with an updated take on the terrific artwork by the infamous Buz Blurr on CD in digipack  form, or LP on embossed reverse-board with special colored vinyl, now's the time to grab a copy because this one's definitely essential listening.