Rootstime

In recent years we have already examined three albums by the American roots rock and Americana formation 'Esquela', which was founded in 2008, starting with the debut album “The Owl Has Landed” from 2010, followed by “Are We Rolling ?” from 2013 and the 2016 released “Canis Majoris”. The band's lead vocalist and vocalist are John 'Chico' Finn and Becca Frame, while Brian Shafer is lead guitarist, Matt Woodin is the second guitarist, Keith Christopher is the bassist and Mike Ricciardi is on drums.

 The regular producer of the albums of 'Esquela' is Eric 'Roscoe' Ambel, who is known from his previous work for Ryan Adams and Marshall Crenshaw, among others, who again signed for that role on the new album from the band "A Sign From God” on which he also plays on acoustic and electric guitars on most of the songs on this record. That's a total of ten tracks that together make up 36 minutes of fun and easy-to-hear tunes.

 It all starts with the rock song “NYMBY” (see video 1) which stands for 'Not In My Backyard', a situation where everyone agrees to something new like a windmill, a large industrial pigsty or a nuclear or power plant, as long as it but not built in your backyard. Given the number of band members and the diversity of instruments, we can expect broadly orchestrated songs on the album “A Sign From God”. That also applies to the second somewhat quieter song on the album “Oradura” about the French village Oradour Sur Glane that was completely destroyed by the Nazis in 1944 and it also applies to the subsequent rock songs “Rest Of My Life” and the solid beats rocking “First World Problems”.

 For their songs, Esquela always pays a lot of attention to a catchy melody with sing-along repetitive choruses in the lyrics. That won't be a problem for the songs "The Good One (Give Ups)", and "Three Finger Joe", "What's Your Problem?" (see 2nd video) which is about racism and the "Black Lives Matter" movement and "Two Stones" which are all sung by John 'Chico' Finn. Becca Frame takes the lead as the singer of the two beautiful ballads “1861” and album closing track “Wait For Me” which is based on a poem by the Russian soldier and war poet Konstantin Simonov and is the only song on the album “A Sign From God” which was not written by John 'Chico' Finn.

 “End of June the New York based roots rock and Americana music playing band 'Esquela' has released their newest fifth album under the meaningful title 'A Sign From God'. The ten songs on this record are strengthened by the fantastic soulful voice of lead vocalist Becca Frame and the robust singing of the band's principal songwriter John 'Chico' Finn. Their music is mainly based on solid and catchy rock songs, but we are also very much pleased with a few excellent ballads.” – www.rootstime.be