What if Nick Cave would decide to reinvent himself as an eco-friendly country rock singer with a group sounding like the Tedeschi Trucks Band? Matthew O'Neill's highly passionate songs on his debut album Trophic Cascade are dark and a tad pessimistic, now that humankind is dead set on destroying the environment. O'Neill prefers poetry to preaching, making it a record that can be enjoyed on various levels. if Poisoning The Well is a slap in the face, then a trip to Louisiana might lift the mood a bit.
He assembled a bunch of kick-ass instrumentalists to bring his vision to life, with reed man Stuart Bogie and guitarist Ryan Scott as the stand-out players. The backup vocalists are a bit too smooth - you don't want overcrowd things on an album like this, especially not during the passive-aggressive Alzheimer's Blues.
