Search - Michael Mcdermott :: Last Chance Lounge

Not enough words to do this justice

Mary Keever | Friendswood, TX USA | 10/26/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Last Chance Lounge" is THE best cd of the year. Hands down. If you haven't discovered Michael McDermott yet...what are you waiting for? He recently signed with Koch Records. LCL is a mix of songs from the previous "Bourbon Blue" and new material. From the moment the harmonica kicks in on the opening of "Getting off the Dime" you are hooked. "Unemployed" could be the new anthem of the 00s. "Hallelujah, I'm overjoyed, drunk again and I'm unemployed." "Murder on her lips" still makes me cry. The stand out on the cd is "Annie and the Aztec Cross." A beautiful song about a friend dying of AIDS. If this song doesn't touch you, you aren't alive. Michael is a poet. He has such a visual way of writing. Sheer poetry. My meager words don't do the cd justice. Buy it. Love it. Live it. Peace."

Fantastic Album

Tom Compton | Chicago, IL USA | 10/18/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"St. John of the Cross wrote about the dark night of the soul in the 16th century. He described it as an intense suffering of purification that God puts us through where hope seems very distant. I can't help but be reminded of the dark night of the soul in listening to Michael McDermott's Last Chance Lounge. McDermott paints vivid portraits of individuals at the ends of their ropes, searching for meaning and light inside the dark. From Annie communicating her impending death from AIDS in "Annie and the Aztec Cross" to a collection of wayward barflies strutting their quirks and insecurities before each other in "20 Miles South of Nowhere", Last Chance Lounge delivers the gamut of lost soul storylines. The album wastes no time in getting started with "Getting Off the Dime" a driving number that grips the listener from the outset. A darkly comical "Unemployed" tells the story of a "pauer with a prince's taste" who bemoans his situation while letting us in on his ruse. "Murder on Her Lips" evokes the mood of a tender ballad and turns a twist to it all as we discover a fierce vengence inside the "quater girl". "Leave Her to Heaven" depicts the loneliness of coming to grips with loss and "Thinkin' About You" presents a man haunted by lingering regrets from a violent relationship. From top to bottom this album is strong. The imagery and characters and poignant. McDermott has a genuine gift for presenting the listener with the lives of suffering characters, their choices, their hopes, their regrets, and all the while witholding any kind of judgement. He gives us these stories of lost individuals with a keen objective eye that begs the listener to draw his or her own conclusions, both on the characters we get to know surprisingly well in the context of a four minute song and how we relate to what they're going through. The emotional impact in Last Chance Lounge is so strong precisely because I could see my own hopes and despairs mirrored in the lives on the record. It's not my story, but I've been there inside my own dark night of the soul. Michael may have titled this album Last Chance Lounge, but it could very well be just the beginning of his moment in the spotlight if this album gets the attention it deserves."