{"id":272,"date":"2009-01-20T00:14:24","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T07:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.downthelinezine.com\/archives\/?p=272"},"modified":"2011-02-09T13:13:03","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T19:13:03","slug":"audible-sign-by-the-vigilantes-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/audible-sign-by-the-vigilantes-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Audible Sign by The Vigilantes of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VIGILANTES OF LOVE
AUDIBLE SIGH<\/strong>
1999 True Tunes
Purchase: billmallonee.net<\/a>
Review by: Steve Ruff<\/p>\n

I will forever profess my admiration for Bill Mallonee\u2019s music. His music is a gift, and simply amazing for several reasons. Nobody else in the music industry turns out this much material that is this good. Mallonee has well over 1000 songs to his credit, and I can honestly attest to the fact that I have never heard Bill stick any kind of filler on his records. I say that sincerely. He has lived his life in a van with a relentless touring schedule of 180+ dates a year for 20 something years. His songs are snapshots full of history, struggle, and heart-on-your-sleeve honesty with influences ranging from the writings of Flannery O\u2019 Connery, Jack Kerouac and Frederick Buechner. The musical influences are diverse as well, Joy Division, The Clash and Neil Young are but a few. I have said more than once, \u201cGive me Mallonee over Dylan any day.\u201d You might think that\u2019s a crazy thing to say, but the music is that good.<\/p>\n

Paste Music Magazine named Bill as #65 amongst the best 100 living songwriters. Vigilantes of Love were a band that received much critical acclaim, but somehow that never transferred into album sales. I have never understood how music that is this good, and this well reviewed by so many, never translated into commercial success. This record, Audible Sigh, was called \u201ccompelling and insightful\u201d by Rolling Stone.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Billboard said of Mallonee, \u201cDylan-tinged vocal and introspective lyrics that spin out big-picture stories imbued with chilling small details.\u201d Buddy Miller, who has worked with Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams (to name a few), produced this album and is quoted as saying, \u201cThe poetry and intelligence of Bill Mallonee\u2019s songs rival Dylan\u2019s.\u201d The people who contributed on this record attest to the quality of Bill\u2019s work. Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Julie Miller and Phil Maderia contribute, completed by the Vigilantes who were at the time, Bill, Jacob Bradley and Kevin Heuer.<\/p>\n

This is a great record that should have seen the top of the charts. Some of my favorite tracks include \u201cNothing Like A Train\u201d, \u201cBlack Cloud O\u2019er Me\u201d, \u201cResplendent\u201d and \u201cCould Be A Lot Worse\u201d. If you haven\u2019t listened to Bill and Co. in awhile you should check them out. Bill disbanded the Vigilantes sometime back in 2002 and carried on as a solo artist, typically accompanied by his guitar, harmonica and his wife Muriah Rose who plays piano. At the end of last year though, the Vigilantes reformed and now we get the best of both worlds, Bill solo and Bill backed by a band of amazing musicians. I am grateful for Bill\u2019s music, it is definitely something that has helped me tremendously in my life, and something that has always given me hope. It\u2019s music for the \u2018everyday\u2019 person. As Bill has said himself, \u201cI tend to be a heart on the sleeve fella. I figure it’ll resonate with someone somewhere…we’re all made outta similar stuff, I think.”<\/p>\n

Check out Bill\u2019s website www.billmallonee.net<\/a> where you can purchase this record, and most all of his other work, solo and otherwise. The cool thing is that on the website Bill has excellent prices. Most album downloads are around $7.99.\u00a0 Audible Sigh is $12.99, but comes with a bonus 5 songs that bring the total tracks to 19 !!! Check it out, you can\u2019t beat it.<\/p>\n

www.billmallonee.net<\/a>
www.myspace.com\/worksprogressadministration<\/a>
www.myspace.com\/billmallonee<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VIGILANTES OF LOVE AUDIBLE SIGH 1999 True Tunes Purchase: billmallonee.net Review by: Steve Ruff I will forever profess my admiration for Bill Mallonee\u2019s music. His music is a gift, and simply amazing for several reasons. Nobody else in the music … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,24],"tags":[34,114,89],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-january-2009","category-music-review","tag-bill-mallonee","tag-true-tunes","tag-vigilantes-of-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downthelinezine.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}