Rock Plaza Central At The Moment Of Our Most Needing, Or If Only They Could Turn Around, They Would Know They Weren't Alone CD

If ever there were a band name that does not suggest the music played by that group, it's Rock Plaza Central, the Toronto outfit organized by singer/songwriter Chris Eaton. With its acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, and accordion, plus a couple of horns and a rhythm section, all sawing and tooting and tapping away, this bunch should be called something like Folk Holler Outpost instead. Eaton's singing voice, an imperious yelp unencumbered by notions of key or pitch, an appropriate counterpoint to the insane Weill-like wail playing behind him. The production on the sprawling act's 2009 release seems to aim for the effect of field recordings by players who have put down their farm utensils for musical instruments and, perhaps, just grabbed whichever ones were handy. It is a thrilling, if often dangerously unrestrained, cacophany and even if the lyrics don't reflect Faulkner's LIGHT IN AUGUST (Eaton's stated inspiration), the melancholy chaos does.Pitchfork (Website) - "There is a sense of a journey undertaken, battles fought, ideas considered, destinations reached....[It] feels somewhat more approachable, as if you could put it on shuffle and proceed through this strange world logically."