Search - Holy Sons :: I Want to Live a Peaceful Life

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yr $ | Seattle, WA | 10/11/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is what early Neal Young might have sounded like had Neal spent some time inside the mind of a much darker loner before he recorded his self-titled debut -- which is to say that it's really good. Emil Amos' lyrics seem like they could be uttered only by someone too lacking in motivation to record such a dismally beautiful record, but I Want To Live a Peaceful Life is his fourth album under the Holy Sons name. Most songs find only subtle, spare folk-rock stuctures to support Amos' auspicious crooning, which is darker and more remorseful than most shoegazers' newly dyed hair. Take "Ready To Die," in which he simply bellows the song's title repeatedly. Here's to hoping he'll see it through to make some more records."

Review from British mag 'Uncut'

Ziggy | Clam, Missouri | 03/27/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Brazenly morbid deathbed blues Emil Amos' Holy Sons mourn the demise of their last vistage of optimism with a quite definitively miserable fourth album, jam-packed with Portland Oregon despair and futility. Good Value!



With 13 sketches lasting a half-hour, it's beauty is that somehow it avoids self-indulgence, each cameo crying, making Knut Hamsun look like Ken Dodd, then drifting politely away. Sliding between slurred whispers and a sighing falsetto, he reaches emotions the dreary latest Lambchop opus didn't.



Between "anxiety", "paranoia" and "compromise", he peaks with "I stare into the the empty nothing left-just some dust, and some cold" Is this alt. Country, or so bleak it's genre-less? He craves relief, if only he could get up off his bed and walk. Makes ON THE BEACH sound like "Beach Baby".

Chris Roberts, UNCUT



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