A Man Under the Influence

Alejandro Escovedo

Digital

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Intimate and personal, a perfect blend of orchestral sweep and glam rock swagger. A true masterpiece.

Full Description

A Man Under the Influence is Alejandro's wonderous exploration of the emotional terrain of love and loss and redemption. It is at once both ghostly and literary. In these times of manufactured drama and cheap emotions, it's easy enough to talk of such things, but Alejandro remains the rare artist who can crawl inside these themes and explore them both intimately and personally. This record is a masterful expression of all that makes us look within as well as to the horizon. With unflinching conviction, Alejandro squares his shoulders and through his music faces up to all that life has to offer, for better or worse.

Paying special attention to arrangements and textures, in order to, as he puts it "make the melodies as strong as the lyrics, Alejandro renders Man as a cinematic whole. The rocking "Velvet Guitar" is as expansive and brimming with regret and disappointment as any John Ford epic. The opening tracks, "Wave" and "Rosalie" speak to the separation, patience and romance of an immigrant family; the latter telling the true story of separated passionate lovers who wrote letters to each other for seven years before reuniting and marrying. Speaking of weddings, we've gotten so many letters from fans over the years telling us they used "Wedding Day" as "their" song.

This is remarkable material, and we haven't even yet mentioned the song about the foxy, arhythmic castanet player "Castanets" that was his show-stopper for years and is pretty much 3 minutes and 30 seconds of perfect rock and roll.

Produced by Chris Stamey (db's) in North Carolina, Man features many performers from Alejandro's band of usual suspects, (Hector Munoz, Eric Heywood, Cornbread, Brian Standifer, Joe Eddy Hines), but also a lot friends from the area chipped in their talents: Ryan Adams, Chip Robinson (The Backsliders), Caitlin Cary and Mike Daly (Whiskeytown), Mac MacCaughan and John Wurster from Superchunk, Tonya Lamm (Hazeldine), Squirrel Nut Zipper's Chris Phillips and indie rock icon Mitch Easter.

The result is a perfect blend of orchestral sweep and glam rock swagger.

Short Description

The lone rocker is one of his best; a three-chord miracle called "Castanets."

— Exclaim
There's no clutter here, no misdirected energy or gratuitous moments. Escovedo hits the sweet spot with every song, connecting with his audience on an emotional level that endows the album with an unusual resonance.

— Billboard
On A Man Under The Influence, all the elements that made his music special—the balance of epic personal ballads and all-out rock, the gorgeous orchestrations—are firmly in place.

— Onion AV Club
Exploring the peaks and valleys of melody and rich arrangements, creating the most subtle, textured album of his career.

— Pitchfork
The album showcases a richness and a cinematic nature to his songs that is both inspiring an deeply moving. A bold and resounding success.

— Texas Music
The depth and breadth, the elegance and power of Escovedo’s songwriting is realized like never before. From top to bottom this album has no weakness. Of the 2500 CDs that I will hear this year, I can say with absolute certainty that this will be the best.

— The Leader Post
Musically, Escovedo is his own genre, a folk-blues classicist with a gritty plaintive voice and an equal fondness for dirty boogie and spectral balladry. With this album, Escovedo's own pilgrimage out of the shadows continues with power and elegance.

— David Fricke, Rolling Stone
Alejandro Escovedo takes a song and makes it absolutely his own, and he swings easily from rocking numbers to slow songs played with elegant sadness. His versatility in things musical is a joy to hear and see.

— Men's Journal