Murray Attaway - In Thrall (1993)

Murray Attaway was the lead singer and guitarist for the Marietta, Georgia jangle pop band Guadalcanal Diary. After the band's breakup, Attaway recorded one solo album, titled In Thrall, which was released in 1993. Guadalcanal Diary was one of the most underrated bands to come out of the Athens, GA music scene of the 1980s. Their unique brew of lyrics focusing on left-of-center subject matter married to irresistible melodies with a bedrock foundation of thrashing drums and rhythmic bass lines, resulted in a sound that set them apart from their peers R.E.M., Pylon and the B-52's.
This one completes the series of Guadalcanal Diary posts.

Some reviews…..

- …a decade later, I still come back to it, August 20, 2003
By Brian D. Metz (Seattle, WA USA)

I saw Murray Attaway play at the Backstage in Seattle (well, actually Ballard) in support of this album in 1993. I'd heard of Guadalcanal Diary, but never actually heard their music. After the show I picked up the disc and listened to it fairly obsessively for the next few weeks.
Of all the thousands of discs I've picked up in the intervening ten years, none has stayed with me the way "In Thrall" has.

Do yourself a favor. Buy this disc.

It has everything; melodies, lyrical depth, production.

I went on to buy every Guadalcanal Diary disc I could lay my hands on, and it was one of those "…damn, if only I'd known" experiences.

I've looked online repeatedly for information about what, if anything, he's done since "In Thrall" only to find the same empty whistling between the trees that greeted this brilliant album.

Murray, if you're out there…thank you; we're still listening.

(amazon.com)

- In Thrall doesn't whap you over the head on first listen but, as the title suggests, seduces the listener gradually and inexorably into the universe of Murray Attaway's debut solo album. As leader of Georgia's Guadalcanal Diary, Attaway was often too eclectic a songsmith for his own (commercial) good. In Thrall teeters on the brink of this trap, then pulls back into an intense, cohesive sense of purpose by the end. Attaway's style is best captured by the near genius of "Walpurgis Night," where he takes one of those great pure-pop melodies and proceeds to throw the baroque kitchen sink at it. There's always more going on here than first meets the ear. Enthralling. ~ Roch Parisien, All Music Guide

Tracklist:

1. No Tears Tonight
2. Under Jets
3. Allegory
4. Angels in the Trees
5. Living in Another Time
6. Evensong
7. Fall So Far
8. August Rain
9. Walpurgis Night
10. My Book
11. Home

total time: 48:11

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Related posts….

Guadalcanal Diary - Walking i... Man (1984) / Jamboree (1986)

Guadalcanal Diary - 2x4 (Lmtd. Ed. ) (1987)

Guadalcanal Diary - Flip-flop (1989)