While singer-songwriter/roots rocker Brian Wright certainly created an impressive stir and left a memorable impression with his first label release, House on Fire (2011), it’s his second album, Rattle Their Chains, that has cemented Wright as a talent on the road to earning legendary status: “Brian Wright is yet another in a long line of sharp, impressive Texas songwriters, a line that reaches back through Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Steve Earle…Buddy Holly and beyond, and his songs stand up with any out there…” (All Music).
The Waco, Tex., native and new Nashville resident unveiled Rattle Their Chains, a diverse new collection of plaintive ballads and rootsy rockers on Sugar Hill Records, yesterday, Sept. 10. For the creation of Rattle Their Chains, Wright retreated to coastal Oregon to find inspiration and pen new songs after scrapping the initial recordings of the project. He sought the spontaneity of live show, a roots-rock hoot to smolder and sting, and he got it.
Here’s just a sampling of some of the early praise Rattle Their Chains has received from the press:
“He’s a careful and exact lyricist, knows his way around a melody, and has an unerring pop sense as well as deft sense of arrangement. Wright’s songs are the stars, and they’re good ones, full of sharp turns of phrase, memorable situations and characters, and they’re tightly written gems.”
– All Music
“Songs are important to him, as is evident in the craft and care that went into Rattle Their Chains. If work is a good place to hide, perhaps good work is a better place to hide, and if that’s the case then Rattle Their Chains should be an ideal hiding spot.”
The Tennessean
“…A deliberately loose delight, songs that worm their way into your subconscious and won’t let go. Even the more subdued numbers, such as the strangely affecting “Weird Winter” are staggering in their richly evocative imagery. Outside of Peter Case I don’t know anyone writing songs — personal and universal, disparate and familiar — this multi-leveled.”
– Rapid River Magazine
“…Louder and broader than anything he’s done before.”
– American Songwriter
“Let me tell you, there aren’t many people that can turn a phrase like this. It’ll tickle your ears and stab your heart all at once. And when he’s not being clever, he’s being honest.”
– The Ruckus
In support of the new album, Wright will hit the road this fall on tours with both singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz and indie rock band Carbon Leaf. But before kicking things off with a hometown show in Nashville on Sept. 29, he will perform at the prestigious 2013 Americana Festival in Nashville on Sept. 17. Joining Carbon Leaf on October 10 in Kansas City, Wright will play markets including Denver, Portland and Seattle before joining Jarosz once more for a stretch of nine dates. Beginning in Wilmington, DE, on Oct. 22, the Jarosz/Wright bill will visit cities such as New Orleans, Atlanta and Charleston, SC, before wrapping on Nov. 23. For a complete list of tour dates, please visitwww.brianwrightmusic.com.
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