Tony Logue’s Jericho was the first album I reviewed in 2022, and it was the first one to really blow me out of the water, thanks to sharp production and writing that was just as jagged and visceral in its blue-collar framing. For further proof, I’d point to cuts like “Calloway County” and “Pilot Oak.” I noted Chris Knight as a comparison point then, but Logue came into his own as a songwriter with that album.
Anyway, he’s back again with a quick turnaround for latest album The Crumbs, which mostly carries on where Jericho left off, and that’s not a bad thing. Again, this is a blue-collar-focused slab of hard country and grimy southern and heartland rock, where Logue’s characters are just barely hanging on and making ends meet, standing just barely at the edge of losing everything and having to live with whatever fallout awaits.
At least at first, it seems a bit more hard-charged and direct than its predecessor, sacrificing some of the deeper complexities in the finer details in favor of straightforward character portraits of honest working people who won’t have enough at the end of the day to make ends meet. If hope is found, it’s only in earnest through little joys and comforts, like getting away from it all on the great opening song, “Thundertown,” complete with that great fiddle lick. And in terms of blustering, swaggering laments from people with dead-end jobs and lives – ones where you can feel the blood, sweat, and tears pouring out – it doesn’t get much better than the three-song run from “Takin’ Care” to “Rust Belt.”
There’s a punk scrappiness to Logue’s work that shines in how his characters have to make questionable decisions just to stay alive, where the most cutting part of it all is a system that will work around them rather than ever actually fixing anything. Like with Jericho, however, I do still think the often similar tempos and chord progressions can make this album start to run together after a point, not helped by a slower, clunkier cut like “Paducah” at the beginning, or the two generic motivational numbers via the title track and “The Fight” that feel better realized in actuality on the tracks that follow.
Starting with “The Fire,” the album seems to take a more personal turn, first with a tribute to Bruce Springsteen himself that feels well-earned given the sonic similarities to “I’m On Fire” without being a direct rip-off, further evident in the sharp writing, and rich character detail (smart choice to frame it around, too, given that we really didn’t need yet another cover of the actual song itself). And hell, who better to understand the plights of people who feel hopeless in their endeavors than the musician mocked by people who don’t believe in him, on “Rolling Stone.”
It’s also here where the production aims a bit softer but also more wistful and warmer off the touches of piano and pedal steel, a muted touch that serves other tracks in the back half excellently as well. There’s the first-person retelling of Jesse James’ story on the aptly titled “Jesse,” where Logue’s knack for crafting empathetic viewpoints for otherwise seedy characters and adding a layer of complexity unconsidered before really shines through a mostly muted and downbeat progression. And even if I would say this album is maybe a little less striking in its overall highlights, “The Phoenix” is easily his best song to date – and possibly the best song I’ve heard all year.
On an album where most of these stories end with questions of what characters will do next in order to survive, the answer is often up to interpretation. He’s crafted songs where his characters resort to crime and have to live with their choices afterward, but on “The Phoenix” … well, we have a woman ready to get a tattoo of the titular bird, told from the tattoo artist’s perspective, where her goal is to rise above a past suicide attempt and find a way to live again. And it’s told with so much grace and empathy from Logue’s character’s perspective, that the whole song is just a massive gut-punch, especially with the slow-rolling tempo and blasts of fiddle that don’t overshadow the darkness but do their best to add a new fuel for that everlasting fire.
It’s not meant to insinuate that the fight is ever over – hell, by ending on an uncertain note through “Bootstraps” in which a blue-collar worker just barely scrapping by has to now deal with the reality of becoming a father and being more scared of what’s ahead above all else, that goes without saying – but in this world, you take the victories when and where you can. I think this album counts as another one for Logue.
(8/10)
- Favorite tracks: “The Phoenix,” “Rust Belt,” “Killin’ Frost,” “Bootstraps,” “Thundertown,” “Takin’ Care”
- Least favorite track: “The Fight”
The Musical Divide 