Published on May 2, 2008
I remember the first time I saw American Beauty. After the last scene (which I will not spoil, save to say it’s the cinematic equivalent of a punch to the gut), I just sat there, agape, almost catatonic at the sheer emotional impact. It’s as fresh as if it were yesterday; it was like being hit in the soul by a speeding truck.
After the first time I listened to the debut release from A 750ml Affair, I felt the same way. Same truck.
The work of a single singer/songwriter/instrumentalist, Gregory Rogers, A 750ml Affair is a complex, raw, and shiveringly harsh look at one man’s life, how it relates to his dreams and failures, and the big question of What It All Means In The End. It is unblinkingly realistic, slashingly graphic, and completely and utterly brilliant. If art should make you uncomfortable, then this is art; I know damned sure that by the second or third listening (and I have listened to it no less than seven times in two days) I was quivering with the knowledge that the musician’s life could have been mine; I was a hairsbreadth away from being in the same situations he is in and has been in. A 750ml Affair could have been me; it has been me; it might be me.
Musically, 750 is proficient to excellent. The music is surprisingly textured and variable for being the work of one man; stylistically, Rogers can move with a chameleon’s facility and grace from churning alternative rock to acoustic singer-songwriter to an almost jazz sensibility with seemingly little effort. As a lyricist, he produces single lines that stick in your head like the memory of a particularly wonderful spring afternoon – or a particularly graphic car accident. All eleven songs are tight, concise photographs of a moment or an emotion, and they all work.
I have to give particular praise to the clashing rhythms and denial of emotion of “Fine,” the vicious, biting anger of “The Daily Ten,” and the title track (which sounds like the evil twin of a Barry White song).
It’s rare that I hear something that literally takes my breath away with a hammer strike of emotional impact. A 750ml Affair is such an album, and it should not be missed by anyone.
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