Warm Beer and Cold Women

Artist - Damion Suomi
Album - Damion Suomi
Released - April 22, 2009 (P is for Panda)

Reviving the same lamentations of post-blues lounge crooners with a dark lager in one hand and a Camel in the other, Florida-based Damion Suomi crafts the same tattered elegance with his eponymous debut album.

Suomi (say it with me - sue-me) carries the same weight under a new brand of Irish folk with the subtle qualities of late nineties alternative and alt-country begging for a deeper meaning and subsequently an answer.

According to fellow P is for Panda label artist, Mike Dunn, he describes Sumoi as, “kind of like Michael Stipe and Billy Bragg having too many beers and playing Woody Guthrie songs.”

And the comparison to Michael Stipe of REM is obvious: if Stipe smoked one too many stogies and drank his weight in Guinness, you’d have Suomi. The resemblance is ephemeral when tracks like Darwin, Jesus, the Devil and Me flourish under a melodic tempo of acoustic balladry set to the thrashings of Suomi’s power-questioning lyrics.

The consistent tone of his album generates an unwavering sense of bled-out relationships, bouts with his creator and bourbon, never outdoing himself and staying true to a foot-stomping riotous bar crowd.

His coarse rendition of the genre redefines where his music is bred. It’s deep, dark and full of righteous Southern influence, creating the rhythmic discord of the common man.

Laced with the cynical ranting of Suomi, his debut album remains simple and uplifting grafting a modern finesse on the traditional while staggering home after last call.

http://www.myspace.com/damionsuomi