Hardin Thomas Band - Soul Mountain

Apparently, the Hardin Thomas Band consists of musicians who previously played with bluegrass and punk bands. That’s almost like combining the Israelites with the Palestinians because they both speak Arabic. The idea may be intriguing, but more often than not, the two different styles don’t interrelate well. My sense is that Hardin Thomas wants to be the next guitar and harmonica wielding traveling troubadour akin to Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Heck, the name Hardin Thomas even sounds like a character from a Bob Dylan song. But unlike his predecessors, Hardin Thomas isn’t much of a story-teller. A sooth-sayer is more like it, and the songs on Soul Mountain are overwhelmingly vague as a result. In “Gone,” Hardin Thomas ponders the existential nature of the human soul. And in “The Game,” your guess is as good as mine as to what these lyrics mean: “And on the tablets of life / Fate chisels only the score / Don’t bluster or blame / Give your best to the game / No hero has ever done more.” I wonder why this song didn’t make it onto the Passion of Christ soundtrack? Musically, Soul Mountain is too ambitious for its own good. Folk story-tellers thrive on the simplicity of their sound and the dignity of their words. Unfortunately, Hardin Thomas tries to overcompensate for his lyrical obtuseness with psychedelic guitar riffs and whiney violin solos. But, it is the vocals that are the most perplexing. In a nutshell, Hardin Thomas sounds like David Gray with a bad case of smokers’ throat. I’m not sure if that’s the bluegrass/punk fusion thing, but it goes back to the comparison I made in the first paragraph. The best song on this entire album is the opening track “Blackfoot” simply because it’s an instrumental. Alas, it’s about one minute too short. And I give up… [www.hardinthomas.com]