Lullwater
Faithful Sinners

Review By Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck
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  Lullwater is made up of John Strickland (lead vocals, guitars, bass) and Brett Strickland (vocals, lead guitar), who is no relation to John, with Nick Thomas (drums, percussion), Phil Brush (bass) and Will Manelos (guitar and no longer with the band) filling the other positions in the band with great success. Their name was derived from the street address of the basement where it all began.

Lullwater sites Drive By Truckers, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Classic Rock, 90's alternative, Widespread Panic, Bob Marley, and Stone Temple Pilots as influences. I did in fact here all of those influences at one time or another in their music. It came as no surprise that I liked them the very first time I heard one of their songs as the only band's music I am not familiar with at all is Drive By Truckers and I do like all of the other artists. Therefore, we got off to a good start once I gave this CD a spin.

John Strickland, who writes nine of the ten tracks (and co-wrote the tenth with Bret) in a heartfelt prolific way, has a rootsy and rough vocal style with a southern rock flavor to it. Being that they are from Georgia it does make sense why they sound like they do and one of their main influences is Wide Spread Panic (Athens, GA), one of my all- time favorite jam bands. It seems as though this band cannot lose for this listener.

Faithful Sinners is a solid debut and interesting enough the title track closes out the recording rather than opening it up which in this case does not matter because there is a lot of consistency throughout this CD and starts right at the beginning with "Worse By Better" which is a lament to a love that was never true. If you listen closely to the story of the title track, it is actually the perfect curtain closer. The storyline is about a grandmother crying to sleep at night because her husband is gone and she longs for the day to meet him again. Going further into the meat of the words the singer speaks of the evils and demons within and all the while counting the days that fate meets you at heaven or hell's doors and your penance is then paid. Heady stuff indeed and the music always seemed to fit the story line as take your journey with this band.

When you take the time to hear the words you find that there are some heavy feelings going on about relationships. We all can relate to these topics but can never convey those emotions so powerfully as a group of musicians that are entirely in harmony with each other. This is how I view Lullwater... they are a band that follows their leader John Strickland, feels what he feels, and then translates all of that through the music. When all of this clicks for a band, it can be a beautiful thing. This is a debut album and this group of musicians should be very encouraged with the product they are delivering to the indie community.

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