If you miss Tom Petty as much is
I do, you will enjoy a good chunk
of The Successful Failures’ sixth LP,
“Ichor of Nettle,” the best of which
also channels Gram Parsons, the
Stones, and Cheap Trick, as well as
Robert Frost and John Steinbeck,
just for good measure. Together
11 years, the great power-poppin’,
roots-rockin’ Trenton-based band
take the title of its forthcoming
collection, which drops Oct. 20,
from a line in the Frost poem “De-
partmental” about funeral rites
within the ant world. At 16 songs,
the record is a bit overlong, as are
some of its otherwise pop-friendly
tunes, but nearly half of the tracks
are magnificent and boast some of
the most dynamic, lyrical, eclectic,
yet focused songwriting to grow
from the Garden State.
The outing opens with the Mex-
ican-flavored “The Ballad of Julio
Cuellar,” a real-life tale about a di-
abetic El Salvadoran state police-
man whose smuggler abandoned
NJ STAGE 2017 - Vol. 4 No. 9
him in the U.S. and left him nearly
for dead in the Arizona desert. The
heartbreaking details of how and
why Cuellar illegally immigrated
to better support his pregnant,
cancer-ridden daughter are told to
a Salvadoran customs agent, much
like a down-trodden character in
a Townes Van Zandt or Tom Rush
classic.
Another fantastic track is the deli-
cious country-rock of “Tennessee
Boy” inspired by Steve Earle’s tra-
ditionally Irish-sounding “Galway
Girl” from his 2000 LP “Transcen-
dental Blues.” One of the things
that I love most about roots music
is that it’s like a big, happy family,
handing down lyrics and melo-
dies, like parents pass on a worn
Bible and older siblings hand
down clothing. This is the case
with “Tennessee Boy,” which also
was inspired by Steinbeck, accord-
ing to founding Successful Failures
singer-songwriter Mick Chorba. In
addition to his stellar lyrics about
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