In Review: “Wasted Love” by Nathan Evans Fox
by: Tremblin’ Jack
Nathan Evans Fox… So nice they named him thrice? Having three names means one thing to us: class. All the best artists have three names: Olivia Newton John, Chef Hector Boyardee, John Wayne Gacy, Billy Ray Cyrus, the list goes on and on. Nathan Evans Fox has seemed to pull off something that these other fine artists never did (no, not a sick new mullet). He made a solid country record. His new full-length effort, Wasted Love, will make you stomp, holler, and cry in a way that has not been done in some time.
Bandcamp here:
https://nathanevansfox.bandcamp.com
CLICK THE LINK… Click it! Once you do, you will be thrust into a dusty bowl of the modern Nashville sound. Cosmopolitan Country, when done well, can bore deep into your soul via your ear hole (need to trademark this phrase). That's just what Fox has done on Wasted Love. It's a slow burn kind of record that hearkens back to the good old days of country…the ’90s, of course.
“One Of These Days” opens the record with a somber but hopeful track. “One of these days, I'm gonna go crazy from all of this workin and none of this paying me, one of these days the stock I’m from gonna know the reasons I changed my name,” sings Fox. Gaaaaaawwwwwddddd, the FEEELLLLSSSS! Parents suck, am I right?
The record's second track picks it up a bit on “Mercedes Benz,” a song about getting out of where he is, together with his significant other, and making it somewhere else (enough to buy a vehicle with the starting price of 64,000 SPONDOOLICKS, which is slang for money, derived from the Greek spondulys, meaning shell). WOW, now if that's not the American equivalent of love, I don't know what is. Mercedes makes a good car, with a solid body and an incredible engine. Worth the price, I guess. You were right again, Nathan, I’d stick with you for a Mercedes.
“Lordhamercy” is a soulful third song that would be good to make sweet love to. I mean, why not?
“Carolina Boy” follows with a swift kick in the cojones. This is a song about loving home from a distance. We can all relate to the overwhelming heaviness of having to tell your family you don't want to end up like them. Fox does it with impeccable style and grace as we join a conversation about his conflicted feelings toward his native land of North Carolina. Job well done, sir.
This record is chock full of great songs, but our personal favorite has to be “Some Things Are Coming Back.” This track continues the overall nostalgic but mournful narrative that things can never be the same, no matter how bad we wished they could be. “The folk scene left Atlanta, the cassette tape kids moved in, got back the old ways of listening, these old ways of singing left.” Fox reminds us that loss is just part of the human existence—easy for a FOX!
Wasted Love by Nathan Evans Fox lands every punch and jab that he attempts to deliver. It is a beautiful reminder of how childhood memories, be they good or bad, shape the people we become. Life is funny like that; one minute you’re a hospice Chaplain (Nathan actually did this for what some might call a living), the next you’re a country singer in Nashville… This record is Bohemian-Oatmeal-Certified Tasty, so dig in.
