The Beat Surrender

Gary Murray was the singer/songwriter for the now defunct band LN. The is a five track ep, first up is the title track Revenant Waltz. Can’t understand why but the on the promotional information under a heading “Where” it actually says “To write music this dreary you would have to live in Ohio, Bowling Green OH to be exact”. That’s honesty for you but perhaps something has been lost in the translation here, however its probably one of the truest statements ever.

Murrey lives and works in Ohio as a librarian and he moonlights as a drummer for Jessica Bailliff. Revenant Waltz is unfortunately very very dreary, nice words but far too slow and very basic, not much by the way of a backing track. It’s minimal in the extreme. The next track Whiskey is much the same. Then just as I nearly fall asleep Queen Of The Freight Train took it one step closer to being ok. Good lyrics, well-performed etc. Goodbye Elenor went back to dreary, sleep inducing stuff. The last track Billy is a Bob Dylan cover, which was fine country rock. Overall, out of the 5 tracks two were passable, the others mind numbingly boring.