Mark Spiro
Traveling Cowboys

We get some traveling cowboys when Mark Spiro gives us his new solo album, a man with millions of units sold to his name as songwriter or producer. He has done some solo albums, written for Cheap Trick and many others during his long an impressive career in the music business. I have written favourably about the previous albums we have checked here at Hallowed, like the collection that was released last year. This time it is a pretty hefty release of fifteen tracks we are getting, and the cover seems to indicate a pretty laid-back release.

Musically it is like the previous solo releases I have reviewed, kind of pop-rock, very melodic and often in a lower tempo. Very nice production with Mark singing quite well to pretty quiet songs, if you look for speedier and catchy songs, I don’t think this is quite your thing. It is more akin to a singer-songwriter kind of release, and as the songs are generally of a slower tempo it doesn’t seem like a very varied or dynamic album, the fifty minutes it plays for almost seem a bit on the longer side. The thing going for the songs is the depth, they are often quite layered songs that gives them a longer longevity and this is an album that benefits from being played a few times in order to really getting into it. Not that it is without instant gratifications, but the depth is a stronger part than the hit-potential.

Traveling Cowboys is certainly a good album, it is hard to argue that fact away. But it is also a little bit tired, and it lacks imagination. It is like a worse copy of previous albums we have reviewed here at Hallowed, is he perhaps out of fresh ideas? It feels like many of the songs are just like previous ones but with different lyrics. Not that this lack of creative and fresh ideas is very negative to this album, I still find it to be a positive experience to listen to it, and it has much to offer. But timelessness is probably not something it offers; Traveling Cowboys is a solid effort that probably will go down well with Spiro’s fans while it will pass by pretty much unnoticed by most music fans.

It will not disappoint the ones who listen to it, Traveling Cowboys is a solid but hardly noteworthy album of straightforward and simple slow pop-rock tunes that is a bit too inoffensive for me to really care about them.

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