Cigar Store Indians - Built of Stone (2003)

It's always tough when a band loses one of its cornerstone members, so Cigar Store Indians fans got distinctly nervous when they heard founding guitarist Jim Lavender was quitting in 2003. "Low Note" as Lavender was known, had made his baritone twang a central part of CSI's appeal, and replacing him was never going to be easy.
It's fitting for a hard-working, no-nonsense band like this that they found the answer back home in the small town of Crabapple, Georgia. They found an old friend and guitar player named Jeff Sprayberry working in a local music store and, a few rehearsals later, signed him up. Sprayberry's already proved on stage that he can make Lavender's signature numbers his own, and he stamps his authority on this album with powerful and fluid playing throughout. It must be something they put in the water down there.
It's also good to see the band has found a drummer who's able to stick around for more than one album. Coventry's own Paul Barrie turns in a formidable performance both on this offering and 2001's Guest List live CD.
On the evidence of these ten songs, Sprayberry's tastes lean more towards straightforward rock guitar than Lavender's rockabilly influences, but maybe that's just the way the band decided to go with this album. Its emphasis is firmly on good-time bar-room rock, with just the occasional hint of alt.country fixin's. They've cited Dave Edmunds' Rockpile as a key comparison, and that makes sense. These are tight, economical, hard-driving songs that make you dance and make you smile.
The two tracks that jump out are Other Side of the Pillow and Weight of the World, both of which remained lodged in my head for days after I first heard them. Pillow is Friedman's tale of a country boy who's "in love with a cowgirl from Soho". This is the closest the album comes to an outright country song, with even Friedman's accent shading into more rural tones as things gets under way. It's New York's Soho he's talking about rather than London's, but I can't help thinking how wonderfully this song would transfer to W1. Some London gigs soon?
Weight of the World is another Friedman song reflecting his mood when he's on an endless overnight van journey from one US gig to the next and missing his woman at home. There's something about this scenario that brings out the best in his songwriting, and World produces one of my favourite Friedman choruses yet: "You got to try to live life, kinda like a script / Like you're in a movie, like you're watching it / 20 years from now, you won't give a damn / You're a tempest, one that rains down . . . love". Sprayberry unleashes a glorious little cascade of notes to underline this sentiment in its final readings. He'll do.~M. Slade