Eliza Gilkyson, Paradise Hotel - 40m 13s

Tracks & Durations

1. Borderline	2:42
2. Paradise Hotel	4:06
3. Man of God	4:27
4. Jedidiah 1777	3:52
5. Bellarosa	4:46
6. Think About You	3:23
7. Is It Like Today	5:49
8. Calm Before the Storm	3:50
9. Requiem	3:54
10. When You Walk On	3:19

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Review

Warm reflections, strong convictions, and spiritual grace inform the veteran Texas-based troubadour Eliza Gilkyson's latest, Paradise Hotel. Offerings are even more eclectic than usual, with the Spanish-sung border balladry of "Bellarosa," a surprise cover of World Party's "Is It Like Today," and the hymn-like original "Requiem" extending Gilkyson's interpretive range. She sticks closer to straightforward country on "Calm Before the Storm" (with vocal harmony from Shawn Colvin) and the album-opening "Borderline," while returning to her folk roots on "Jedidiah 1777" and the title track (though the latter finds her humming a coda that evokes Bach or Procol Harum, depending on the listener's frame of reference). The album's most powerful track, "Man of God," represents Gilkyson's strongest political statement to date, an indictment of religious hypocrisy that uses Christianity to justify war, with Colvin, Marcia Ball, Slaid Cleaves, and Ray Wylie Hubbard among those offering chorus support. --Don McLeeseParadise Hotel is Eliza Gilkyson's fourth release on the Red House label and follows her 2004 Grammy nominated and critically lauded "Land of Milk and Honey." Her most personal album to date, it features songs that artfully reveal the roots of her progressive patriotism, comment on the direction our world is headed and peel back the thin layers obscuring the heart of what matters in these complex times.

One of the CD's most powerful tracks, "Jedidiah 1777," tells of Gilkyson's ancestral grandfather, Brigadier General Jedidiah Huntington, who fought alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War. Based on a stirring collection of actual correspondence sent by General Huntington from the battlefield to his father and brothers (also enlisted in the army and equally committed to the cause), the song directly quotes the letters in its lyrics.

Shifting her focus from past to present, the song "Man of God" is a scathing indictment of the current administration's use of religion to manipulate the public. The song is driven by her brother Tony Gilkyson's (of L.A. punk band "X") rattlesnake of a guitar solo and a chorus of vocal support from an all-star Austin cast including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves, Marcia Ball, Shawn Colvin, Anna Egge, Jeff Plankenhorn and others.

The title track, "Paradise Hotel," is an atmospheric journey down the winding roads of human experience led by Mike Hardwick's haunting guitar. Other highlights include an infectious cover of World Party's "Is It Like Today," a honky-tonk duet with Shawn Colvin on "Calm Before The Storm," and "Requiem," a soothing invocation of compassion that was written in response to the 2004 tsunami devastation.

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