Album Review
Three albums into his career, Thomas Pace has evolved into a less haunted, haggard version of Steve Earle: his middle of the road music mixes good-natured country and rock influences into an agreeable, twangy whole, and while his occasional political lyrics (such as the title track) are more than welcome in a cultural era where it seems like the mildest dissent gets one branded as an un-American traitor, he doesn't favor Earle's club-to-the-skull lyrical approach. He'd come across as a well-meaning but somewhat bland Milquetoast were it not for one thing: he's something of a pop genius in the Nick Lowe mold, capable of writing heartfelt and impossibly catchy twang-pop tunes. New American Way contains a pair of small instant classics, "I Don't Want To" (a power pop gem in the style of the Flamin' Groovies) and the mandolin-spiked ballad "Pretty Little Girl in Blue." His more serious side is best shown by the stark but lovely "Song for Malachi Ritscher," a wounded elegy for the Chicago post-rock and free jazz saxophonist, who committed an act of self-immolation in November 2006 as a protest against the Iraq War. It seems a bit out of place at first in the midst of so many tuneful, twangy pop songs, but it also underscores the subtlety of Pace's political commentary in the rest of the album: couching progressive thought in an often reactionary musical style is a fruitful style that keeps Pace from merely preaching to the converted.
