If I'm not mistaken, this album was conceived when the brothers Alvin were spending at least 15 hours a day spitting at each other, and yet, as has happened time and time again in music, the result is a work that approaches perfection, a masterpiece that, with the spirit of the revival living through its golden years at the time, traverses most of the spectrum of American popular music: pop, rock'n'roll, rockabilly, country, gospel, R&B, ballad—in short, "Hard Line" is the exhilarating summary of the "greatest American pop song" you can imagine listening to, the result of Dave Alvin's maturation as a songwriter, who seamlessly strings together a series of songs perfect in their essential nature, not underestimating the value of the lyrics, which often add significant "depth" to the musical simplicity (I think of "Little Honey"). And there’s also Phil, as a singer and arranger, always with the right touches, with the right rhythms; it's impossible to get the guitar solos of "Hey, Girl" or the killer riff of "Common Man" out of your head, or the grand interpretation of the traditional "Samson and Delilah." As a cherry on top, we receive the gift of Puma Mellencamp in the form of yet another great pop song, perhaps the true expressive gravitational center of the album alongside "Just Another Sunday," which symbolizes D. Alvin's writing matured to just the right point. Masterpiece.
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