Cuff The Duke release ‘Morning Comes’ as the first of two looks at the emotions that move us through life. ‘Morning Comes’, the band deals with the concept of loss and the second installment companion will come in a future release that explores life after loss. The band opens their collective hearts and brings rock’s tough love to the tales observations and advice. Vocalist Wayne Petti gives the back story for tackling the issues, “I think it’s about reaching that point in your life when you’re not exactly young anymore but you’re certainly no old. Over the last couple of years I’ve had friends who passed away and you realize that there is a lot of this happening now, losing people. I felt I needed to address this emotion that happens to everybody….when you get off the track and you need to rebound from it”.
Cuff The Duke stare in the mirror of song in the album’s “Standing on the Edge”. The song chorus confessional of “I am standing on the edge, my time if I’ve got anything left”. The words point to those moments in life when the inner voice gets really loud, echoing every dig, knock and kick while you are down that has gone before. Cuff The Duke is up to the challenge of rhyming reality and wrapping it in a song. ‘Morning Comes’ stands as the title for the album but could also be the hidden meaning inside the concept of the album. The albums ten tracks have your back with the bright music that cavorts under the words and the lyric contents ability to leave a light on even when delivering bad news. The sweetness on ‘Morning Comes’ is from the full song experience, not from sugar coating the message.
“Bound to Your Own Vices” shuffle walks in the stripped opening arrangement that relies on acoustic chord strums and hand held percussion for the rhythm before spreads its Alt Country
arms wide to warn “this old life will come back to haunt you”. The track tries out multiple arrangement patches that lay out like a common themed quilt. Cuff The Duke craft songs that stick, giving the verse a literary tone and keeping the chorus for a fortune cookie one liner that can help to change life’s direction. “Drag Me Down” sways beneath the plea of “drag me down, don’t let me go, stand up and let me know, you’re gonna be the only one to make sure that we survive”, “You Don’t Know What It’s Like” points its finger at using the poor me approach “you always linger between your words and all you can say is ‘you don’t know what it’s like’” and “Brightest Part of the Sun” is faithful to its whispered entry of “come lay next to me” through the song as the narrator confides that “hardship comes in the wind” and promises that everything gets better….eventually “when I die I will rise from the brightest part of the sun”.
‘Morning Comes’ is bookmarked by two tracks that are well fit for their position on the album. “Time Is Right” is the opening first contact, stepping in with a solid footstep and confident stride while on the other end of the recording has the music exiting to the tune “Letting Go”, the song heading into the sunset and leaving behind a taste of hope in your mouth.
Cuff The Duke are a Toronto-based American Roots band. For more on Cuff The Duke, follow the path into their website. Danny McCloskey
{auto displayheight="275" height="350" width="400" plthumbs="true" shuffle="false" repeat="list" pbgcolor="#000000" pfgcolor="#cccccc", phicolor="#0099ff" showstop="true" showeq="false"}CuffTheDuke.xml{/auto}
.jpg)
