Search - Nathaniel Street West :: American Way

Buckle up. Roll down the windows. Crank the volume. Pop American Way into the CD slot. And get ready to ride. Your guide on this journey is Nathaniel Street-West, a traveler as well as a messenger, who has seen much of this country and picked up his share of wisdom along the way. His name, at first glance, seems like your destination -- an address, perhaps, in one of the many towns he's called home through his twenty-five years. But let it settle in your mind as the music plays ? The hair-raising fury of "Revulsion," the blues-drenched guitar crunch and anguished, confessional vocals of "Mourning Mornings," the surprisingly visual imagery that splashes the colors of love and pain together on "Pas de Deux," the urgent pulse of his acoustic guitar driving the bitter insights of "Messenger," the trudge of primitive blues and Dust Bowl harp on "Weighted Words," and the conceptual sweep of the last track, "Battered Angels," one of the most ambitious fusions of spoken word and musical abstractions since Jim Morrison murmured his benediction to "The End" ? All of this flashes past as American Way rushes down the nighttime highway charted by Street-West. Some of the scenery seems familiar: The grease that drips from his guitar summons black-and-white images of the distant Deep South. His voice -- wry and ironic, then ripped by a spasm of old agonies brought back to life, and then, just as suddenly, weary and weathered -- will suggest Dylan, or Hank Williams, or Kurt Cobain, depending on where the needle drops. People like Nathaniel Street-West come along too rarely. And when they do, what they have to say can change the landscape of our lives. American Way, then, is as candid as an album can be. It illuminates all of Street-West's multiple talents, from searing guitar to a writing style alive with elements of European literature, street polemic, and the earthy truths of the blues. Each piece of this puzzle impresses on its own; assembled, they yield a picture of multiple strengths in balance, each feeding the others, all contributing to the arrival of an artist whose destiny is to make a difference.