I really enjoy it when albums that I dismiss on first listen come back and force me to like them. Son Volt’s Okemah and the Melody of Riot is one of those discs. My first time through I just didn’t like the new version of the band frontman Jay Farrar had assembled, and each song sounded like anything else the band had done, but better, on their debut on Trace.
Yet bit by bit this summer, songs from Okemah slowly won when over whenever I heard them on the radio or on my computer at work. And as I finally got around to reviewing the album for Trouser Press, I was completely won over, and “Afterglow 61” played a big part in that. It was the first track I heard on WFUV and thought, “Hey, is that from an old Son Volt album?” Yes, it is yet another Jay Farrar song about being behind the wheel. But damn, the guy knows how to mine that vein. And the songs rocks. I heard it four different times this week, not counting my subway listening as I did my final passes before finishing my review. I can’t wait to hear it when I’m behind the wheel again.
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