Garage T. Rashington III – From The Yonder

Garage T. Rashington III – From The Yonder – Album Review

Yaaaaaaaaaaaawn.  *stretch.

Got my freakin’ days and nights loaded up with packing up my house right now for another move, but Lord knows the world ain’t gonna survive without my opinion on another album from good ol’ Garage T. Rashington III.  At least he allowed me the opportunity to wake up a little with the gentle opening of “I Am A Room.”  It’s delicate…not quite devoid of entertainment value…and as usual, sprinkles in the wisdom of one of the internet’s more mysterious characters.  There are things I love about “I Am A Room” – and there are things I do not love about “I Am A Room.”  For example – the guitar is probably some of my favorite stuff I’ve ever heard from the guy…not the strummin’ but the picked parts and whatnot…dude’s got some amazing ideas in the music threaded into this one.  Written from the perspective of an actual room like Steven Soderbergh’s Presence from last year…I like the ideas GTR3 has put on display in his lyricism, even if I’d be the first to tell ya that having “I Am A Room” upfront is a massive risk.  It just kinda plods along, floating…and there’s some beauty in that I reckon…but that’s probably where my most significant complaint comes in.  What are we doin’ with these drums bro?  Am I taking crazy pills?  From my perspective, this song would have probably been stronger without’em.  They’re overly punchy, kind of directly threatening what could have been a pleasant and humble track eight on a record…I’m not really disputing that they sound good, but they’re outta place here my dude.  It’s an interesting choice, I’ll give it that…unexpected from the legendary musical ear of Garage T. Rashington III.

“Lost In The Weeds” is a tune that a lot of folks out there could stand to have a good listen to for the context and subject matter.  In a world gone mad, “Lost In The Weeds” points out a whole lot of the reasons we’re in the situation we’re in with the misinformation/disinformation age we’re living in, but also does a good job of personifying the problem and turning the mirror back around to show us that we’re a large part of the problem, if not the whole damn enchilada.  Still a little concerned with the drum sounds…not gonna lie to ya there…we’re talking VERY defined beats on From The Yonder as it gets its first couple hooks into you against GTR3’s acoustic-based tunes.  Nothing quite as extreme as what we just experienced with “I Am A Room” – the drums do fit “Lost In The Weeds” a little better in that regard – but more importantly, everything else is going right.  The hooks are strong in the vocals AND in the music, making “Lost In The Weeds” a verifiable double-threat…the groove is strong as Garage exits the chorus…the breakdown works…it’s well-conceived stuff, but that should come as no surprise to the man’s longtime listeners out there.  Guy puts a lot of thought into what he creates and it shows in the work…the compositional aspects of a song like this reveal the intensely detail musical craft of GTR3, and at the same time, “Lost In The Weeds” pushes him closer towards that ever-elusive single-worthy sound.

Here’s kinda the point I’ve been making though…do you feel that?  As “Torn Apart” started up – you felt that, right?  That peaceful moment where the music was playing without the interference of the drums?  Fuckin’ serene!  Enjoy it…it won’t last forever.  So…hmm…let’s see…how about a compliment?  Most folks wouldn’t be able to incorporate the craftsmanship that Rashington brings to his music, and regardless of how I feel about the sound of the drums and/or where they sit in the mix…it ain’t easy to write songs, and he’s got nine new ones here.  So there’s that!  With a Led Zeppelin-esque strum at the start that sounds really inviting, GTR3 shifts into a more intricate & interesting design as he continues to play and really add that flavor in the lead.  What the…is that like…bird noises?  That’s not just the sound of him traveling the frets, right?  He’s put an actual bird in here?  Heck…why not?  I freakin’ love what he has been doing with his guitar work on this record…vocals sound good…lyrics have been solid – he’s got three of his four main elements locked down tight, or four outta five if you count the extraneous elements he’ll add in at times.  The production on a song like this is great too – listen to the separation you can hear & how it enhances a lot of the differences between what you get outta the lefts and the rights.  So far, From The Yonder really has that old-school vibe of an album you’d sit and listen to with your full-ass attention…and I dig that.  These aren’t the anthems to send you running to the dance floor – these are practically anti-anthems…low-key energy tunes that put the emphasis on the musicianship.

Garage.  Buddy.  Pal.  You know I love ya.  I’m over here scratching my head to the point of creating new bald spots trying to figure out the WTF of the drums goin’ on throughout From The Yonder.  Pattern-wise they ain’t so bad…simple for the most part, which I think is probably best in some ways…but they’re always so heavily over-pronounced in the mix and the way they sound…honestly it’s surprising.  I don’t know how the sausage is made, but this sounds like it’s done on a beat-machine with the very careful pressing of buttons, and it’s missing that flair of human feel.  Which makes it stand out, because everything else we hear has that aspect held up and proudly revered like it should be!  Like…again, the guitar work on a track like “Trying” is freakin’ fascinating to listen to if you ask me – what’s not to love about that?  I’ve sat here for like, what, a month or so of advanced listening, trying to close my eyes and see if I can hear what these songs might be like to experience without the drums in the way?  Garage has made it challenging to do that with the heavy thump of the snare/kick combos.  I like that From The Yonder is clearly attempting to do some new things that are different from what we’ve heard from the guy in the past…and I think that a track like “Trying” will certainly impress some fellow musicians when it comes to how the instrumentation will be regarded.  And yes…that’s a roundabout way of saying that, for as gentle as it appears, “Trying” is still going to be a tougher challenge for the average everyday listeners out there to find their way into.  Dig the backing vocals…and there are at least a few spots in this song that you can’t help but admire – like where Garage sings “I wish I could be,” and the whole song shifts beautifully into its chorus…that’s a moment of pure magic, way tougher to resist than enjoy.  The solo on this track also deserves a shout-out too…that’s some wonderfully intricate shit to listen to!

With a bit more of the low-end added in, you can get away with some of the stuff in the drums that you can’t in more threadbare tunes.  While it’s true that “Smother The Fire” is probably closer to what you were expecting to hear from Garage T. Rashington III upon pushing play, you can also hear the effect of going back to a more traditional method in his approach.  I’m not gonna sit here and tell ya that the drums are gonna net him some awards on “Smother The Fire” – I’m simply stating the fact that they become less invasive here as a result of being surrounded by a bit of a thicker sound.  So does that make “Smother The Fire” the go-to track of the record so far?  Hell no!  That’s not what I’m saying at all.  It’s not a bad track by any stretch of the imagination – no GTR3 song I can think of meets the criteria for being described as bad – but yeah…I suppose this is a little more of a logical progression as opposed to some of the more noticeably larger departures we’re heard in his sound to this point on the new record.  “And on to the next,” as he says himself…and I’m inclined to agree.  I think the vocal melody and pattern probably steal the show for me on this particular tune, and the rest worked out well enough.  This is a solid example of a steady tune…perhaps achieved by playing it a little safer at times, but there are also a few daring moments that give “Smother The Fire” a little spark to it that’ll serve its longevity overall.

OKAY GTR3…this moment is YOURS to lose bro.  As “By The Old Oak” started out, I ain’t gonna lie to ya – all I could think about was hoping that he’d keep this one beat-free.  And for a minute there, I thought I was gonna get my way too.  I didn’t though.  For the record, I did not.  A beat will show up soon enough.  We get into this spot where we lean on what we know and what we’ve traditionally learned.  Like, for example, my old man couldn’t write a song without a bridge to save his goddamn life, because ‘that’s just how songs are written.’  And so, as I’m sure you can imagine, you’d hear a bunch of pretty decent songs from the guy with some really awkward-ass bridge added in, because he’s going by some kind of rulebook that doesn’t exist, rather than merely doing right by the material and not forcing stuff to be in there when it’s not necessary.  I kinda feel that’s what’s happening with the drums on this song and on this record to be truthful with ya.  A song has GOT to have drums, right?  No!  They don’t.  If it enhances the material and it makes sense, then heck yeah, add’em in or add’em in twice if the song is calling out for that…but there have been at least a few cuts in this lineup where I’m 100% certain Garage’s tracks would stand out even more without the drums being included.  Do they stop me from enjoying “By The Old Oak?”  No.  Objectively, it’s still a good-ass song and it has one of my favorite vocal performances from GTR3 as well.  Even the drums don’t necessarily hamper this song or get in the way that much – but as it began, I felt like the potential was definitely there to leave the beat out and keep the meat in on this particular track.  I feel like we get confirmation of how that was the right way to play it with the song itself being bookended by moments without the drums too.  As I tend to tell y’all around these pages of ours, if something isn’t adding to your song, it’s potentially taking something away – and that something is usually listeners if you’re not too careful!  I’ll give Garage the credit of being just careful enough to get by…but I’ll also point out the most impactful moments of a song like “By The Old Oak” come from its quaintest moment that accentuate its humble tone, in my opinion.  It’s a quality song and performance overall…I do like the way he uses space and pace to his advantage on this particular tune.

Got a shout of “that sounds miiiiiiighty Country” from the office next to me as “Panoramic Contrast” began – and while my wife ain’t wrong about that, she ain’t necessarily right either.  It has some of the elements of being Country for sure, but that’s not really what Garage T. Rashington III does.  The acoustic guitar work continues to be this album’s standout element…dude’s strings are just like butter y’all, always producing a rich & warm sound that’s been highly inviting throughout the whole record.  “Panoramic Contrast” has this odd, like…old-timey romantic element to it…and to be real with ya, it’s actually quite charming.  It’s not ALL like that…in fact, “Panoramic Contrast” will roam all over the place like you’d expect a GTR3 song to do…but like…when he’s not paying too close attention, he ends up drifting into quite a beautiful space.  Shhhhhh!  Don’t disturb him!  If he perks up, he’ll start throwing ya curveballs and diving back into the random…and I like it here in the quaint romance he’s created, so let’s just stay here for a while instead.  Garage is probably the only person that would tell you every song he writes is about one specific thing or concept, while the rest of us hear the guy going this way and that, happily musing on a wide variety of subjects like he’ll never run out of things to sing about.  Honestly, I suspect he won’t…dude makes more music than just about everyone you know, and even though this is the longest he’s gone between GTR3 albums, he’s still got two other side projects on the go, perpetually.

Case in-point, Rashington will ask you to think about pretty much everything under the sun as “Blips” comes on…and it’s like…dude – YOU do the work.  YOU think about the stuff.  YOU are the one who created this, and now you wanna pass off the chore of using our brains onto US?  How the fuck is that fair?  How about this Garage…the next time you’ve still got all this stuff to think about, how about you take care of all that BEFORE you write the song and get that sorted first, will ya?  I don’t know about you folks, but I’ve already got enough stuff rolling around the marbles in my head…if I was to add in the gigantic laundry list of things GTR3 wants me to consider on “Blips” than I’d essentially have no room for other things to think about from now until my last breath.  But heck you and your attempt at mind control Rashington – I won’t be part of it.  I’ve got dreams.  I’ve got goals.  I’ve got things that I want to think about for my own reasons!  YOU think about all these things YOU are bringing up – that’s YOUR responsibility, not mine.  For real though, it’s an interesting pairing when you put a completely predictable pattern in your songwriting, but then load it up with unpredictable lyricism to go with it.  Like, you know that he’s going to ask you to “think of” this or that line after line, but you’d never be able to guess the things he chooses to direct his attention to, which makes it kinda neat.  It’s a bunch of inventions at times…sometimes it’s people, places, and things…you’ll never know what’s coming next.  Overall though, it sounds like “Blips” examines the constants in life, which is two people at the center of all these things happening all the time…which is, again, kinda sweet really.  He COULD just write a damn straightforward love song if he WANTED to, but noooooooooooooo…he’s gotta play it coy and be all about the art of the reveal instead, so he masks this sweetness with a whole bunch of total randomness.  “Blips” is more performance-minded than it concentrates on creating a song that the masses will get – it’s artistic like that, but don’t underestimate the main hooks of the chorus…those will grow on ya quick.

Oooo…but wait…what’s this?  You got your own little “Soma” going on with “Timid Air” at the end of From The Yonder?  I’m in favor of that.  Drums…still problematic to me…there’s really not a song on this album where I felt like, heck yeah, the drums were necessary and contributed greatly to this track, which kinda tells me that it might have been better to take’em all out.  We’re living in a wonderful world where you can totally play along to’em throughout the entire creative process, then rip’em out at the end like they were never there at all…and I might have been inclined to do that with this album as I felt like the music surrounding the drums all spoke strong enough for itself.  I had to play some of this for my wife, just to see if I was being too harsh or if I was straight up crazy for making such a big deal outta the drums…so I went back to the beginning and played her “I Am A Room” – she said it’s got a very David Bowie element to it…and you know something?  She’s right.  You can hear that a little on the final track “Timid Air” too to a degree…now that I hear it, I’m kinda surprised I missed it.  But that’s the thing ain’t it?  You pay attention to one thing, and you miss another in the process.  So while we’re listening to an album that is filled with exquisite guitar work and admirable songwriting, we’ve got another element in the drums that seems to pale majorly by comparison.  Of course that affects the overall balance and such, yadda yadda, you’ve all heard it from me before.  The material here is stronger than it has been in some ways we’ve experienced before in GTR3’s music, but it feels like it was made with a few intrusive blind-spots as well.  Not entirely back to the drawing board by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d say you’re looking at a Garage T. Rashington III album that’s somewhere in the mid-pack of his catalog when it comes to what’ll grab your interest.  Is it too much of a little, or a little too much?  It’s cohesive, that much I can tell ya.  Feels like it needs a little more seasoning & salt, but I suppose it’s still tasty enough.

Agree?  Disagree?  I’m gonna sleep the same way no matter what you think.  That’s right, I said it.  Find From The Yonder and more music from Garage T. Rashington III by choking on DEEZ(er) NUTZ right here:  https://www.deezer.com/en/artist/196294377

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