Longing is the prevailing emotion on Micah P. Hinson’ earthy new record, Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra. “Come home quickly, darlin’, come home to me,†Hinson beseeches on the downtrodden opening track to his third album. It sets the tone for what’s to follow, a record indebted to gothic Americana folk and Johnny Cash-styled country. He conjures up a palpable feeling of loneliness on “Tell Me It Ain’ So’ with a melancholic violin nestled between soft piano chords. “Constantly craving what isn’ mine,†he intones in his well-worn Texan burr. It must be sad being Micah P. Hinson.
Admittedly, Hinson’ life hasn’ been one of golden highways and trophy wives. He was a teenage delinquent who spend a couple of months in jail because of his business as a conman. It sent him bankrupt, so he began work as a telemarketer. Living in a motel post-incarceration, music became his saving grace, a sponge to soak up the emotions. Just when fortunes looked like they were turning for Micah P. Hinson, karma dealt the troubadour a cruel blow: a seemingly benign shuffle resulted in a dislocated vertebrae, leading to back pain that now haunts him constantly.
The slow tempos that infiltrate the majority of his latest album resemble his own stifled movements. It’s apparent on songs such as the bare-boned “The Fire Came Up To My Knees’, “I Keep Havin’ These Dreams’ which houses a rather regal-sounding string quartet and “Dyin’ Alone’, a stunning, albeit brooding and bleak, meditation on the acceptance of one’ inevitable passing. These numbers, much like the whole album, acutely articulate an artist tortured by his inner demons while simultaneously coming to terms with them. He might have been dealt a bad hand, but Hinson’ playing those cards the best he can.
Dom Alessio
