Review: David Olney-Omar's Blues

Atmospheric and cerebral, austere and lushly beautiful is the writing of David Olney. The Nashville outsider makes songs that make sense and are literary or historical or Biblical. Omar's Blues is written as a trilogy based loosely on the life of Omar Khayyam (One Thousand and One Nights). The songs from Omar's Loves revolve around love in its incarnations and complications. "Omar's Blues #1" [RealAudio clip from the Dead Reckoning site] could've been straight from a Buddy Holly songbook if not for the complexity of its message. "If It Wasn't For the Wind" [RealAudio clip from the Dead Reckoning site] is a Springsteen type ballad on life's dichotomies while "Delta Blue" [RealAudio clip from the Dead Reckoning site] has an old-time acoustic blues (or Hank Williams) flavor and revolves around a helpless love with a dark side. As you listen further, sambas on spent youth, Dixieland tales of inevitability and rockers recounting the tales of David and Goliath or King David fill this spinning disk of delight and diversity. The cuts are beautiful to hear, stimulating to contemplate, weird juxtapositions of pop music and literati. He's the art film rock and roller. It's well worth experiencing David Olney's world. It's humanity with all its unvarnished facets, first person tales, into your head and your heart attitude, and glory bound cranking.—Mark Gresser