​Noel McKay (from the album Songs About Bad People

​Noel McKay (from the album Songs About Bad People

​Noel McKay (from the album Songs About Bad People available on McKay Records) (by Bryant Liggett)
 
Noel McKay’s brand of Roots Rock is ripe for the dive bar crowd. Starting with death and rolling through adultery, excessive greed, and ego, his stories are delivered without much guilt. His latest release, Songs About Bad People, is a dark, Roots-noir at its finest, a package of musical seediness with likings to Hoyt Axton or Charles Bukowski.
 
A mission to make everything art is something we all should pursue, done so by Billy White in the opener “Artist of Death”. Noel McKey introduces a killer approved by the state, dropping his woes as the man behind issuing death on Death Row. “Pink Chandelier” is Classic Country thanks to a rolling piano; a cheating song that sounds like 1976. The tales tells of an inability to keep from wandering, and it is a forever trait, and there are pink chandeliers everywhere.
 
Vanity is recognized in “Terrifically Vain” while McKay nails Cuco Sanchez’s “Fallaste Corazon” as he paints a picture of a despicable human as he chases 1980’s glory for “The Midas Touch”, “Hit Man” finds Noel McKay giving a solid nod to the band Morphine, where subtle saxophone drifts in a cut that’s pitch dark, while the closer, “When the Nights is as Black as a Coffin”, is a cheating tale that turns the tables.
Timeless questionable, guilty behavior remains a lyrical thread, and Noel McKay doles out those tales in a minimalist package. The music is cool, laying back enough to put his picturesque cast front and center in the songs. (by Bryant Liggett)
Listen and buy the music of Noel McKay from AMAZON
For more information head on over to the Noel McKay website