Having trouble in life, wandering around and changing professions like shirts seems to be a common thing in Americana. Usually, it is quite often the driving force behind the music. In that respect, Ben Labat’s story is no exception. This Louisiana guy was a roofer, father, husband, oil-rig roustabout. A series of freak traffic and stage accidents to people in his life didn’t escape him either.
All this and quite a few other things drove him to for The Happy Devil band and come up with their fourth album Homeward, and it really shows in the music and the lyrics.
Labat’s been in and out of music since 2006 and has slowly become a known quantity in Americana, particularly due to his continuous performances and his songs being used in soundtracks to The Ghost Whisperer, The Real World, Jersey Shore and Middle of Nowhere with Susan Sarandon.
Homeward as a title could be self-explanatory, but as Labat himself puts it, was it homeward could be relative. And this concept is quite visible in the music - tight playing by the band that is quite familiar with almost any road in the US, Labat’s gritty, down to earth vocals and the lyrics aiming for better times, but with that dark shadow underlying each and every song.
The title song and “Set It On Fire” explain more or less everything about this album. “Homeward” deals with the ideas you seem to hold important at a certain moment that for some reason or another turn to be not important at all in the long run. On the other hand “Set It On Fire” is about relatives or close friends who find themselves on the road to nowhere, as David Byrne would put it, and no matter how close they are, you have to let them go at a certain moment.
As with those two songs, all the others on Homeward tell a distinct story that leaves a strong mark both musically and lyrically. A very enjoyable album that can jolt some memories, both pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.
