Take the best of American popular music, throw it into a bag, add some deliciously wry lyrics and leave the whole concoction to swelter in the Floridian sun. What would you get? Well I have no idea, but if you were lucky it might end up sounding something like The Tonewelders, a simple roots rock band that borrows liberally from country, blues and folk.
The real strength of The Tonewelders is main man David Glennon’s ability to write excellent songs that focus on the small things in life with light-handed irony and heavy-handed guitar, drums and bass work. Opener ‘I’ll Take A Little’ starts of with dreamy indie guitar chords before settling into a folk-pop mixture with a great sing-along chorus. It is also an introduction to a clever lyricist who excels at turning common concepts and situations around 180 degrees so it is obviously familiar, but tainted with a touch of the exotic.
This concept is strengthened with track two ‘When Good Things Happen To Bad People’. A loser laments on the unfairness of his life accompanied by some excellent blues harmonica. If you can’t appreciate that then you must be Tom Cruise, in which case can you please return Gordon H Monkey’s calls, he discovered you after all. Anyway back to the review, ‘It’s A Guy Thing’ deals with the difference between men and women, using a decidedly ‘50s feel to the music to achieve it. There is some excellent guitar work on display here as well.
The CD continues on in this way never settling into a specific musical groove for more than one track at a time. The constant across them all though is the lyrics and singing of Mr. Glennon, and the tuneful accompaniment of the rest of The Tonewelders; Jon Alexander, Michele Bailey, Brenda Bayne, Kevin Saunders and Alice Simkins.
There isn’t a dud to be found on this twelve track outing and you seriously have to give the tracks a listen, it is one of those albums you simply couldn’t ever regret spending your hard earned (or otherwise) money on. My personal recommendations are ‘If I Could Take My Own Advise’, ‘7-11 Of Lovin’, ‘She Hates Me’ and ‘Plan Z’.
Well don’t just take my word for it, click on the CD Baby link below and give the tracks a trip through your aural sensors, I doubt if they will be disappointed.

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