Thom Landt Bordertown Golden Vizsla Music (Available from Myspace.com/thomlandt and CDbaby) San Diego country rocker breathes new life into a dying art form with a mouth-watering debut * * * * Thom Landt is a veteran of the San Diego, Southern Californian music scene. As a young man he was inspired by seminal outfits like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills’ Manassas, The Allman Brothers, Joe Walsh’s Barnstorm and Poco. A multi-instrumentalist Thom was befriended by Poco’s Paul Cotton; becoming an integral part of Paul’s solo projects Firebird and When The Coast Is Clear. He also carried off the mantle of right hand man in The Paul Cotton Band. This brush with one of his main inspirers has rubbed off on Mr Landt. Despite making home demos of his songs for years, and playing dates with his group The Telegraph Canyon Band, it has taken Thom until now to make his music publicly available. One wonders why? Beautifully packaged, the music herein conjures up cinematic visions of hot dusty, desert highways, and a yearning nostalgia for simpler, innocent times. Landt offers lived in soulful vocals throughout, stinging guitar and slide work topped off with some tasty pedal steel playing. Opener, Lonely Town, an upbeat rocker, conceals a darker lyric; ‘I look back I know this life’s been good to me, but every now and then it takes a little rain to see, you know I had it all ‘till it came pouring down …’ Driving Wheel examines the passage of time; ‘You can’t stop a train that keeps on rollin’, musically this is top notch with spine tingling steel and a magnificent guitar solo that lifts the song to a higher level. Isn’t It About Time appears to be a call to arms, to bring back real music that moves one: ‘Isn’t it about time we pulled out all the six strings? Isn’t about time we cranked up that steel guitar? Isn’t about time we heard a B3 screaming?’ All nine tracks clock in at over 4 minutes; this seems to suit the music and allows the tracks to breathe. Nowhere is this more evident than on the title track Bordertown, a beautifully moody, atmospheric number that examines the growth (not in a good way) of the authors hometown, San Diego; ‘this town ain’t the same, the streets were all cleaner, now they’re just meaner.’ Landt excels here with a great vocal and guitar performance. Pedal steel guitarist Tony Ellington deserves a word too for his exquisite steel work. The tone of regret is lifted by the straight ahead country rock song, Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained. The slower paced Angel Of Mercy has a spiritual feel and is a good showcase for Landt’s slide guitar. The only cover in the set is the penultimate track, Dylan’s My Back Pages. This is a good version with steel and Fender guitar, rather than McGuinn’s Rickenbacker, bringing back fond memories of the Byrds’ great take. The theme, of lost youth and wisdom, fits well within the set. Closer, This Time, with its stunning slide work, closes the record in blazing fashion. Images of ‘rivers’, ‘running horses’, ‘wild-west shows’ and, the road that ‘rolls on’, fits neatly into the country rock bag of tricks. By looking to past masters, and blending his musical ability with a mature realists’ eye, Thom Landt has created an excellent country rock album that feels surprisingly at home, here in the 21st Century. John Brindle -as published in Maverick Magazine-July, 2009 issue.