Sad Folk-Blues and Love Songs
Listening to Gamblin' House is like walking through a Georgia woods at night after a rain storm, spotting a light in a window somewhere above the treeline. It's the kind of folk-blues that walks away from you, beckoning you to follow. When he sings, "My baby likes a slow love song," the grit of his voice around those syllables piles on more meaning than the words are capable of pushing across.The distant fiddle on "Goin' Downtown" is not to be ignored. It may be overshadowed by Holcombe's growl and the swoop and groove of the Dobro, but it's the fiddle that holds down the hoedown. The Dobro gets its day, though, on the title track. It swings in and rips it against a reticent harmonica halfway through the song. This is also where Holcombe's lyrics are some of the strongest on the disc: "I got my own kinda problems / my own kinda rules," he sings. "I got friends in my wallet / they love me like a fool."
Highlights
The best song out of the bag is "You Don't Come See Me Anymore"—a tune that's part Bob Dylan, part Townes Van Zandt, part Greg Brown. You can't get a better amalgam of sounds and comparable songwriters than that, and Holcombe spews the honest, gritty heartbreak like few others. "My catchin' up is runnin' kinda slow / And you don't come see me anymore."Although there's a pervasive sadness echoing throughout all the songs, Holcombe's odes on his wife, "Cynthia Margaret" and "Baby Likes a Love Song," are two of the sweetest, most heart-felt love laden blues songs I've heard in some time.
If there's a drawback to this CD, it's in the fact that it would be a perfect album if they'd kept it down to 10 tracks. While great songs, "Good Times" and "Blue Flame" aren't as stellar as every other effort on the disc. That's a small criticism, though. In just about any other context, those two tunes would be considered strong. It's only that they're in such superior company, that they don't measure up.
