Andy Germak
Color Through the Smoke
Running Time: 59 min. 32 sec
Songs: 12
No Lyrics (but can get them on web page)
"American Dream Blown To Pieces" is a dark story about the Columbine High school massacre. The first track on the album, "Kosovo," packs words like "last night they came took away the car, the kids, neighbor's dirty laundry, painted faces green, ran around like rats run, down with the mission." Similarly, "Winds of Oklahoma," I can only assume is about the Oklahoma City bombing.
Overall Andy Germak does a stellar job. I'm impressed with his music and the message that it puts forward. However, I use music to escape from a lot of the shit in this world that I deal with every day. Things like Kosovo, and Oklahoma terrorism, and children dying in our schools. But giving him credit, these are important issues that people who don't give a shit need to hear. Good work.
Sometimes there are musicians who just play music and add words to them. Then there are those that put words to music and the words tell a story. And in some cases those songs leave you with something to think about or reflect upon. The latter is applicable in the case of Andy Germak's "Color Through The Smoke" album. With a acoustic guitar and a piano, this real world music, is simply put…. NICE. Reminiscent of Shawn Mullins' "Soul's Core" album, his songs take you someplace. The problem, however, is that these places are often laden with political and moral issues. And at times begin to cause the listener to lose sight of the music and be forced to deal with the topics embedded in the song. For example, there are quite a few songs that stand out on CD.
