arlo mckinley die midwestern

​Arlo McKinley (from the album Die Midwestern available on Oh Boy Records) (by Bryant Liggett)
The solo debut from Arlo McKinley is a musical punch in the gut. Die Midwestern is a solid and slow dose of reality delivered via gritty Folk and fringe Country, true tales of spent dreams, lost love and attempts to reconcile and just get-by. Die Midwestern opens with the hopeful “We Were Alright”, a road tune about lovers traveling wherever to escape anything. The title track kicks off with a lazy fiddle as Arlo McKinley sings about ‘another Cincinnati Saturday Night’, a story detailing McKinley’s love/hate relationship with his home state of Ohio. “Bag of Pills” is the tune that got Arlo McKinley signed to John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, the last bit of business Prine conducted for the label. It is a simple song about selling off some pharmaceuticals to fund a date-night of drinking that turns into calling out to Jesus as the narrator claims ‘I remember when you told me, if I believed I’d never be lonely. Now I know you were lying’.
“Suicidal Saturday Night” with its church organ is a country-gospel confession, “Whatever You Want” is a lonely ballad of dedication and change, and album closer “Walking Shoes” is a gutsy plea of change, championing both taking off and returning home. The emotion is painted on thick, the situations in these songs universal. The layered instrumentation provides a solid bed for a lyric-heavy record of shared pain and shared hope, where Arlo McKinley breaks your heart in the best of worst ways. (by Bryant Liggett)
Listen and buy the music of Arlo McKinley from AMAZON
 
For more information, please visit the Arlo McKinley website
 
 

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