LOVE IN REVERSE'S KEEP UPRIGHT: FULL ALBUM REVIEW

Love in Reverse, the acclaimed ensemble of Michael Ferentino, Andres Karu and Dave Halpern, rolls a new epic onto the playing field: Keep Upright. It's been in development for a spell, with the ardent tease of a couple, catchy singles last year, but now it stands in whole, and whoa!, does it ever strike a comforting, consummate chord. 

The title track (situated as the album's third) is, in fact, the key to understanding the concept's behavioral fabric, encouraging one to stand up and endure, in light of any and all ongoing trouble. It's a self-help kind of anthem, evading that devilish voice that promotes misery and woe, a path devoid of pretense or demands, tapping a contemplative courage that runs thick and fast through Keep Upright's related veins. 

For example, "This Heavy Feeling" (the first in the ten-track queue) captures the confines of fatalism in a manner that only Love in Reverse could render. It speaks of overcoming anxiety, explaining how nothing makes much sense when one faces trepidation, when one's soul feels enflamed, when one's brain proves a terrible trickster. 

"Summer of Horror" is next up, its title invoking a campground slaughter, but it's much more than that. Through Ferentino's pensive lyrics, a love is crashed and burned, or perhaps it's one that's never been born. The resulting pain, in all its glaring glory, presses through: identifiable to all who've yearned for a significant other, only to be ignored. 

"Too Much Thinking" follows the title track, reflecting daily concerns, when one worries about this and that, blowing that oh-so-important chance to keep some order. Ferentino's vocals drive this home with compassion and rage, with a heart-in-the-right-place empathy and I daresay, an ample layer of encroaching dread, which paints a vibrant denouncement of the no-way-out, rat race.  

"Care" commences the album's thematic flipside: a rejection of emotional baggage. To my ears, the track is a sweeping, relationship song, acknowledging the horrid flaws of one's  constitution that a loved one may rub in one's face, and therefore pushes the need for one to sever the necessary ties and escape. 

"Gently Screaming" pays homage to George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," but with a quickening cry that squeezes a listen-up plea, even when acknowledging that the game is fixed. It calls out zombies (in The Hooters tradition), instructing the populace to take note and avoid the bad that one unwittingly seeks.

The latter's message is re-imagined in "Lost Weekend," a title that brings to mind Ray Milland and an empty bottle, but it's really an antidote for fighting decades of doldrums. "Lost Weekend'"s chanted beat, its encircling, euphoric bounce, is sweet and contagious, which makes the act of gaining salvation, of falling in love, credible and as such, acceptable.  

"Lobotomy Song" swings the euphoria even higher, stretching a winding pass, with an on-the-road, 1970s feel. It celebrates shutting off one's brain, taking a vacation from the state of the nation and existing behind a satisfied, smile-less smile. 

Its sequel, "Let Her Run," creates another path to freedom, with an unshackled exaltation that's modern and spacey, with the fortitude to diminish a virulent lass and in so doing, leaving one all the better for it.

"Little Bird" ends the album's journey on soft, soaring wings. Its theme presses the need to please only oneself and not give a damn what the haters say. In this regard, it rejects those who reject, for the views of others mean nothing if they keep one glum. In this severance, this pervading punctuation, comes transcendental peace: indeed, the best means of all to keep upright. 

Keep Upright offers much to consume and appreciate. Attend the musical lecture at  

https://open.spotify.com/album/2xIYpETnNUa7I2IQ8kwkWj?si=1&nd=1&dlsi=7bf5f9a71bae48e9

LOVE IN REVERSE: THIS HEAVY FEELING SINGLE

Speak of perfect, musical timing! 

I've been feeling downtrodden and scared as of late, due to my owing hefty taxes without representations and a constant blurring between courage and cowardice on the cultural front, but moreover, the general indifference that characterizes our society as a whole, with one bad stunt chasing the other.

Love in Reverse's "This Heavy Feeling," a single from the band's upcoming album, Keep Upright, has captured my fatalism in a manner that only Michael Ferentino, Andres Karu and Dave Halpern could have rendered, as they share a sentiment that recalls their somber, artistic roots. 

"This Heavy Feeling" speaks of how hard it is to wash away anxiety, despite the enormity of help one seeks. It also claims that nothing makes much sense when all that one faces is uninspiring trepidation, when one's soul feels enflamed, when one's brain proves a terrible trickster. As such, what does anything matter in the vast configuration of existence, if the sun is destined to fizzle, if one's aspirations and struggles become indivisible under the glare of incensed intensity?

The lyrics (as sung with hypnotic appeal by Ferentino) are inarguably heavy, but Love in Reverse's upright, instrumental swing resists its conspicuous dread. The song's melancholia pushes it toward a survivalist slant, questioning the necessity of heartbreak by hammering the hell out of it. 

"This Heavy Feeling" now occupies the core of my psyche, and I thank Love in Reverse for gifting it. Listen to this empathetic anthem ... and feel the weight lift:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MyB-uUE4ac

LOVE IN REVERSE: I'M AN ILLUSION

Love in Reverse is an impressive group: unique, acclaimed and sadly underrated. However, those with outstanding taste have often revisited the New Jersey-founded band's material over the decades. Those same fans now have reason to rejoice, for Love in Reverse has released a long anticipated album entitled I'm an Illusion, which is certain to please all its faithful followers, while luring a whole, new army of admirers. 

As with Love in Reverse's past sojourns, Michael Ferentino's vocals are as smooth as silk. He's also reunited with the invigorating sounds of the super-talented Andres Karu and David Halpern. The results are nothing short of spiritual. 

In fact, I'm an Illusion's content is so so heavenly, so sublime that it's impossible to pick a favorite track. Each gem seems to bounce to any given mood, though "Blood Donor" might be the real pulse behind it all, requesting the need to give unconditionally, whether for love or cause; though if this is the case, then the album's existential, title track is its veritable plasma, binding the variables to ensure that everything comes out just right. (BTW, the  contagious groove of either entry would suit any 007 and/or "Mission: Impossible", opening-credit sequence. They truly do spurt that much soul-soaring spunk.) 

"Glam of God" furthers the driving swagger, even if with a sprinkle of Haxan hypocrisy tucked beneath. Within its big, banging beat and empathetic lyrics, one might foresee something shiny, ethereal and colossal stomping by, but at day's end it's only plebeian inside, for in any simple, basic human heart resides that one real, fetching God: that truthful core beyond the glitz that helps one grow.

This charitable advocacy also prevails in reverse (tee-hee), per the swaying "No Way This Time", in which one is told to go one way, but damn well travels the other. "Adultery" matches its sardonic sting, perhaps not so much in tint, but certainly in its treacherous (though catchy) lament (a kind of Moody Blues-does-guilt, if one will), while "Something's Up" symbolizes a haunting, hiccuped suspicion as one drives through the eternal streets of envisioned betrayal. 

Other tracks are just as penetrating, with "Bella Baby'"s ass-kicking rifts and shifts saluting a Pied Piper soul that's wise, gentle and strong. "Waydown/Burn it Down", on the other hand, is its New Wave, Marty Stuart antithesis, invoking a spiraling, Middle Eastern plunge into places that one has no choice but to accept or reject, depending on where one lands. 

"Arrived", the marvelous, punctuating track, is an accomplished, futuristic, backward hello: a song that marks the end and start to all that one has (for better or worse) experienced. Its vibrations are pensive, draining, fulfilling and personify Love and Reverse's defiant endurance throughout the years.

With this said, Love in Reverse has never been part of the mainstream scene, even as it's existed within that lofty niche. In other words, there's always been a rebellious and uncommon quality to the group's impassioned intent. I'm an Illusion is no exception to that long-standing rule: a cathartic masterpiece and beyond any speck of debate, the best return sojourn in decades by any proven group.

Swing in at 

https://loveinreverse.bandcamp.com/album/im-an-illusion