STEPHEN LOMAS: Press

Mermaids says it all.....refreshing and timely..
I am biased...I knew the Lomas boy when he was a puppy. Listening to those tracks just crystalised a lot of what growing up for us was like. Anzac Day should be, by all rights, an aussie icon song. Funny ... for Stephen it represents a picture of an event that didn't happen...for me it represents the truth of it- my ancient head having been patted by sundry diggers when I was a sproglet...and that smell of decay and stale beer is as fresh as yesterday for me. Musically I'm a bit of a retard...but Stephen can surely make those strings hum! Buy it!!!!!!

Stephen's music. There's two albums...
'Mermaids', the earliest, was published in 1999. It's what I can best describe as acoustic in style (acoustic guitar, occasional percussion and keyboards).
Sitting over there and beatin' the streets of Hollywood during those years, guitar in had in sunny California, Stephen must have been feeling a little homesick. Not only does Mermaids have Wigram Road, there's two instrumental renditions, solo acoustic guitar, which weave in and out of traditional Australian tunes - 'Moreton Bay' and 'Under the Southern Cross' (through which a number of traditional tunes come and go) and there's another Australian song - 'ANZAC Day'. The instrumentals bring a pleasant
counterpoint to the songs and amply demonstrate that, yes, Stephen long ago mastered the guitar.

'Sinbad Ranch' was released in 2006 and consists of what Stephen describes on the CD sleeve as "... songs... a summary of the time I spent writing, performing and hanging out with some good friends around LA... ". It's quite a different sound that, were I writing this in 1976, I would describe as 'country-rock' . Stephen describes, too, that while the CD was being produced he moved from Southern California to the slopes of Tumbarumba.
Sinbad Ranch retains the acoustic guitar but the voice has a somewhat different sound - whether Stephen's voice changed between 1999 - the year of
Mermaids - and 2006, or whether its a matter of production in the studio remains unknown. There's more percussion on this album and - surprisingly - a track with accordian with a Cajun/Zydeco sound (did you have this in mind
Stephen?) - it's the title track, Sinbad Ranch.

So, what tracks do I like from this album - what stands out, which
particular sounds appeal most? First - they are all good listening, so this is simply to state my own particular, subjective appreciation. Well, there's
Sinbad Ranch, Lookin South ( "... she said the things you want the most that's what you need the least"... "she was lookin' for the
revolution and I ... I was lookin' south"), I'm in El Paso (with its slide guitar sound), Ride Away (definitely rock), Wild Wild West (with its harmonica breaks which - whenever I hear that instrument in a song... my mind races back to associations with Dylan and with friends around Kings Cross
in the 60s).
'Road to Palestine' is an upbeat political song ("...he loves Smith & Wesson, Kalishnikov too... " ... "... but no one knows which way to turn on the road to Palestine"). 'Radio' has a distictly country sound with twangy guitar over a simple acoustic guitar rhythm.

Well, both CD's are good listening and it's probably a peculiarity of myself that I get to like album's better the more I hear them. That's what happened with Stephen's music. This is music that draws on traditional sounds, that
is varied in style, pace and intensity. These are songs that tell stories - like little narratives - for some of which Stephen has mined his own background and turned that into lyrics. It is also music that has a full sound, is competently performed and produced and is easy to listen to either to ponder the lyrics or to play as background. It is music that will appeal to a range of age groups and musical tastes.
...Russ Grayson Pacific Edge

Inhabiting a realm between Dylan at his moodiest, The Pogues at their
jumpin'est and Ry Cooder at his pickin'est, Stephen Lomas has produced a coherent and engaging CD of original songs and instrumentals.

Long time ex-pat and recent re-pat Australian, Lomas recorded this offering in California in 1999. It is however undeniably Australian in character and subject, with themes including Anzac Day and the Southern Cross. There is often an Irish lilt to his easy finger style guitar playing that shifts deftly into the familiar strains of Click Go the Shears and Moreton Bay. It is in his songs such as the opener No Night for Lovers and Wigram Road that
Lomas drifts into a Dylanesque landscape of image and imagination, inhabiting a zone that is at times edgy and brooding with instrumentation echoing the organ/guitar arrangements of The Band in their prime.

These darker moods are lightened by tracks such as Up All Night, Mermaids and Spinnin' that hop along at a bright and lively pace on a road somewhere between Alice and Anaheim. Lomas also delivers beautifully rendered solo guitar interpretations of traditional Celtic Australian classics such as Moreton Bay and a medley of traditional tunes dubbed Southern Cross.
Exhibiting a crisp, lyrical style, he captures the melancholy mood of these pieces, creating space in and around his playing in which to set his gentle phrasing adrift.

All You Sinners shifts from a brooding introduction with strains of Ed Kuepper into a rollicking jig that would have any Pogues fan kicking the air. Lomas' guitar playing provides the spine from which he hangs his compositions. His easy and comfortable finger styles at times give way to swampy slide and full tilt raunch. His vocals mesh effortlessly with his playing exhibiting a soulful and enviable marriage of talent and skill.

Mermaids... Nice rollicking beat & bottle-neck guitar work with a neptune theme of all things.

Mermaids... Good acoustic playing, reminds me of Bob Dylan. Down to earth song & lyrics.

Up All Night... Nice acoustic guitar sound & production. Overall, production strikes me as very pro. The more I listen to garageband the more I notice how that makes an enormous difference. The vocals are somewhat Dylan & Lou Reed. The Up All Night part is a good hook. The vocals/lyruics could use a little refinement, but I think the spoken style works well in this song.

I haven't played it
enough yet to hear the music in my sleep, but I think I will be! I'm
enjoying it and plan to share it with friends. Great gravely voice.
(all those Marboro's might not be so good for your health, though!)