Brian Stoltz - God Guns & Money CD

Posted by: leeway | May 24th, 2005

Bob Dylan may or may not be in the Swan Song of his career but Stoltz sure isn’t. Brian Stoltz crafts ten epic and righteous attacks on our bizarre, circular foreign policies with the proper tinge of liberal and civic outrage. This concept album was crafted when his brother, Keith Stoltz, returned home “safely after serving over a year of active duty in Iraq.”

Stoltz has compassion towards those that are serving but he sure as shit doesn't agree with how they are being used as the old proverbial pawns in someone else's game. Even if you're not a Left Winger (Jesus, what the hell are you reading me for?! Go get some mag rag like People or Spin or something for the Bush contemporary tripe.), these lyrics burn into veins; hopefully, spiking the evening news with a small amount of smack to blur the line between reality and the narcotic gloom that covers us all. "What is Real?" has Stoltz asking "what is real when the heroes and villains form a permanent seal?" On "Opposite Sides of the War" Stoltz ponders "five in one house divided three against two...never too good at suffering fools but lately I bite my tongue." Man, what intelligent American doesn't feel that bile in the back of the throat right now! A crappy time to be a liberal, indeed. Yeah, but with more folks like Stoltz unleashing rage like this...hope is for the young; but, courage comes in all chronological shades. Stoltz is right and true and, if you're smart, you'll listen: "god, guns and money from the prairies to the sea, centuries of creation wrecked for a reconstruction fee."

-- Randy Ray