By Terry Roland
With the release of Richie Owens’ new album, Redemption, the multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter steps into the national light of day with music that notably shakes the listener, and a restless nation, with themes of faith, hope, cautious celebration and sense of foreboding. But the levee has broken, and the singer-songwriter stands in the river like a parchment prophet preaching through musical traditions that give the message its power.
Redemption and its predecessor, 2020’s Reconstruction is a wake-up call to all of America on all sides of today’s political, moral and socio-economic divide.
In 2020, Richie Owens released the album Reconstruction, a departure from the familiar southern rock roots he has forged with his band, The Farm Bureau, for more than a decade. Reconstruction came out the midst of divisive and shifting political winds and during one of the worst pandemics in American history. The beauty of the album was how it touched the nerve of the personal & public restlessness during such a tumultuous time. However, the album gave the listener something to hang on to in the suite of eleven interrelated songs. It called us to embrace hope and faith through the power of music through the fog of fear. Even if that meant engaging in a healthy amount of anger and cynicism.
Now after calling us to rebuild, Redemption arrived as the next chapter in this musical conversation. It calls us to step into the light of redemption, even as we seem to be heading toward an irreversible abyss. It touches on politics, but it is much more. In times of trouble, this album calls us to action. It is a collection of songs that moves through the skeptical and often cynical spirit of our times, to a singular act of faith in the power of music. It is about surviving through the mistaken trails and the trials of our time.
Drawing instrumentally from his Appalachian roots with haunting, electric apocalyptic sketches laid out on a psychedelic-classic rock tapestry, each song engages the listener and invites them on to experience the warning and the reason to carry on in the face of the fire. While each song is an illustration of this, it is especially well portrayed in songs like “Welcome to the Evening Show,” “The Hammer,” and the soul-infused, “How Long.”
Redemption manages a careful balance between the realistic heartbreak of loss and the hope for rediscovery of all that is precious along the American landscape.
The album, like its predecessor, is the result of Owens’ family legacy that has always stood tall during times of strife. His family story, as will be highlighted by his upcoming acoustic tour, dates back before the Civil War. It is also where he draws the authority to write and sing these songs with such conviction. This history makes Redemption so distinctive.
Like past albums from like-minded American roots music singer-songwriters, it carries deeper meanings than may be the norm in popular music (think Springsteen’s Nebraska or Petty’s Southern Accents).
Richie Owen’s new, masterful album, Redemption, invites us to the dance even while the floor is on fire. The redemption the album alludes to is in the very act of standing up and moving forward toward better days.
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Terry Roland
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