York’s Jeremiah Freed unfettered on debut by solid rock stylings

Editor’s Note: In Sound Advice, the first Saturday of every month, veteran Bangor Daily News entertainment writer Dale McGarrigle reviews new rock, pop, alternative, country, folk or blues albums. Different NEWS writers contribute reviews from other musical genres.

“Jeremiah Freed” (Republic/Universal) – Jeremiah Freed

After repeated listenings of this debut album, it’s hard to believe that this quintet from York is less than two years out of high school.

The members of Jeremiah Freed – vocalist Joe Smith, guitarists Nick Goodale and Jake Roche, bassist Matt Cosby and drummer Kerry Ryan – have a mature sound that belies their relative youth. It’s good old American hard rock, created with instruments, not computers, and honed to a razor’s edge with several years spent practicing in garages and spots that don’t really deserve the word “club.”

Maybe that’s why veteran producer Beau Hill (Alice Cooper, Ratt, Bad Brains) agreed to work with the band, producing two-thirds of the album’s 12 cuts (the rest are self-produced). Maybe that’s why a major music conglomerate would take a chance on them, hoping to discover the next Staind or Nickelback.

Such cuts as the first single, “Again,” or “How They All Got Here” would fit in nicely next to Creed or Puddle of Mudd on hits radio. Freed demonstrates that everything old – their influences such as Led Zeppelin, The Who and Aerosmith – is new again.

The album’s insightful tunes come from Smith and Goodale, with the centerpiece “Out of Trust,” a song written in honor of Smith’s father, who died last winter after a four-year battle with cancer (the album is dedicated to him).

“Jeremiah Freed” proves that dreams can come true for garage bands – as long as they have the chops and the substance to back them up. This album shows that Jeremiah Freed is a group ready to play with the big boys.

“Southern Rock Opera” (Soul Dump Records) – Drive-by Truckers

When Southern literature is mentioned, certain names spring to mind: William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Drive-by Truckers.

OK, maybe the last one is a bit of a stretch. Grad students won’t be examining the band’s lyrics in upper-level courses anytime soon, although maybe they should.

But still, the Athens, Ga., quintet’s recent double album, “Southern Rock Opera,” is a masterful examination of the Southern psyche, along with the perception of southerners by those in other regions of the country. DBT warns about painting all Southerners with a broad brush, and labors to explain “the duality of the Southern thing.”

DBT’s ambitious epic, packed with a triple-guitar attack, focuses on the time its members came of age, Alabama in the mid- and late ’70s, and the Southern voice of that time, the original Lynyrd Skynyrd,

The first disc (Act I) of “Southern Rock Opera” succeeds in capturing the aura of that era, especially among its teens and young adults, in the raucous spirit of DBT’s idols, Skynyrd.

The second disc (Act II) largely follows Lynyrd Skynyrd, from their rise from the Florida swamps to the Oct. 20, 1977, plane crash that claimed three of its members, including the soul of the band, singer Ronnie Van Zant.

The 20 songs on “Southern Rock Opera” don’t entirely fit together as a coherent whole. So think of the double album as a book of short stories rather than a novel. Still, it’s a winning series of vignettes, full of memorable characters that live on long after “Southern Rock Opera” finishes. So turn those speakers up full blast, and play it all night long.

“Shekinah: 13 Artists” (Epic) – Various artists

I sat through dinner, impatiently wriggling in my seat when I finally blurted out that I won a silver medal at a local ski race that afternoon and that I planned to skip college and become a professional skier. My grandfather’s eyes exploded. His napkin withered in a clenched fist as he admonished me in his thick German accent, “You will stay in school!”

When I was offered a position at a newspaper before I finished college, my grandfather’s opinion didn’t change. And his words echoed in my mind again when I recently sampled the new CD released by Berklee College of Music – “Shekinah: 13 Artists.”

The album features 13 female student artists and is at best on-the-job training, a practical lab. At worst, it is a compilation of wannabes and rip-off artists.

The very first song on the album, “Bus To You” by Clare Maldaur, easily could be mistaken for a Jewel B-side tune. Track No. 2, Rhea’s “With or Without You,” pangs of Destiny’s Child. “Out Of My Mind” by Polina, the album’s third song, could be a sound-double for Sade. And on and on. Shades of Sarah McLachlan, Vonda Shepherd and Heart weave their way through what is a relatively uneventful musical journey.

Shrouded amid the mediocrity are a few talented young artists. Track 8, “Feel You Breaking” by Adrianne, track 10 by Kyler, “Stronger,” and especially Antje Zumbansen’s “Without An End,” track 11, are an oasis.

Still, most of the music on this album is flat and predictable. There is little new ground broken by these students. So, if the school entertains the idea of a second release, might I suggest a 14th track, an a cappella rendition of “Stay in School” by Grandpa Katz. – Stephen M. Katz