Search - Alan Merrill :: Aleecat

Aleecat sneaks up on you

Blue Miki | 05/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First of all, all these songs are catchy. Alan Merrill knows how to write ear candy that is insidious and infuriatingly so, because after a couple of listens one of his songs will run around your head for days. He wrote and sang all the songs on this album, and played most of the instruments as well.

I have a few of his albums and his voice is familiar to me. He has an individual and soulful style of singing. He has great delivery of a lyric and makes you believe he's lived every word he sings.

The songs I like best on this album are "illusion", then the rockers "Trisha uptown" and "everytime she comes around." I also really like the solo acoustic guitar and voice song, "phoenix and the renegade." All of the songs are strong, and well crafted.

The production is sparse on the main body of the album, and this allows each instrument and voice to be heard with a fine clarity. The bonus tracks however, recorded around 1978, are rough hewn. Done with just drummer Dave Dowle, and Merrill playing and singing all the rest, these were demos were initially recorded for use by the band Runner. Merrill and Dowle were both founding members of that chart hit Island records band. Of the bonus tracks the oft covered Merrill composition "when the night comes" is, at least for my taste, the best .

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