Rusty Reid – Head to Heart (Rio Paso Music, BMI)
26 August 2024
My last two encounters with Rusty Reid, a Texan living in Seattleon previous singles “The United States of Selfishness” and “American Villain,” finds him in a generally political mood, speaking truth to power and offering positive criticism of the maneuvers and machinations of those in power, and delivering a kind of blunt State of the Union address to his fellow Americans.
But this time he’s more concerned with inner thoughts, personal journeys and self-critical feelings. Head to Heart follows the simple premise that only by traversing the bumps and potholes of life’s road, only by suffering its slings and arrows, only by enduring its cuts and bruises, can we become the more well-rounded and evolved people we want to be. The point is that we can’t make ourselves better human omelets without breaking the eggs of experience.
He gets this idea across through smooth pop-rock sounds, a clever mix of winding rock riffs and pop catchiness. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect at the quieter and more considered end of Tom Petty‘s or maybe somewhere in the The Eagles‘ back catalogue, and it’s not all that often that the two bands overlap, but here the mix of chiming rock and shimmering Americana seems to encompass, to some extent, the signature sound of both bands.
Rusty Reid is a rare troubadour who is as comfortable in political statements as he is in social commentary when pursuing a more spiritual agenda. We’ve already witnessed his ability to make you think; here he’s just asking you to feel something.
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