Artist: The Workers
Album: Theatre of the Distraught
Label: Independent Artist

Website: www.cdbaby.com/cd/DanielGreenwald

Genre: Pop Rock, Americana, AAA

CD REVIEW:  

4 piece rock band The Workers hail from Bronxville New York & release “Theatre of the Distraught” on March 15, 2010. This is a 4 song EP, and is the bands 3rd release thus far.   

The EP contains 4 tracks total and logs on at just over 18 minutes. The EP kicks things off with “Aggression” an interesting intro piece that serves up psychedelic rock groove, impressive musical soundscapes, & passionate vocal accents courtesy of lead singer/guitarist Dan Greenwald,  “Aggression” is in itself an amazing intro statement, & makes for a good musical first impression with it’s rich personality, and hooky melodies. Track 2 “Leave you with I Love You”” shifts gears a bit with slow driving rhythm, and a barrage of psychedelic accents reminiscent of The Violet femmes, The Flaming Lips, The White Stripes, and Blind Lemmon. As the CD slowly unfolds you will notice all types of impressive musical textures layered everywhere. Besides the typical 4 piece rock standard, you will notice many impressive piano, castanets, tambourines, & melodic guitar and keyboard layered everywhere. All in all the EP has an amazing amount of depth and personality to it. But getting back to Greenwald – it’s obvious to me his is a brilliant musical mastermind, & clearly a marquee talent. His lyrics and vocal paraphrasing are extremely catchy, addictive, and highly infectious. In fact I would say he is one of the most impressive singer/songwriters that’s come across my desk this year. His vocal style just refuses to try to hard, & possesses pure emotion with each passing moment, phrase, and melody. He has the vocal swagger of say a Jack White (The White Stripes), Gordon Gano (The Violent Femmes) with just splash of tragedy like Shannon Hoon (Blind Mellon). But what makes Greenwald so convincing is the amazing amount of emotion you can hear in his voice, and writing. This is never more evident than on Track 3 “Cats Eyes” irobably the most brilliant statement on the whole EP. As it slithers across your ears, you will be mesmerized by its addictive groove, infectious personality, & priceless lyrical content. The chorus goes “Sometimes I feel out of place act as I feel for the absence of knowing birds fly to high fall from grace search inside Cat’s Eyes try to find where I’m going” Now that's is what I call brilliant songwriting! The final track “Single” dishes out a dark exit finale, with Beatles type rock vibe, rich sonic layering, & hypnotic vocal groove. The lyrics again - "All alone and I’m not lonely, can you say the Same” Pick-up gonna bring you down, playing stupid Games.” Nice touch! 

From start to finish "Theatre of the Distraught" is an amazing EP, and an extremely psychedelic catalogue of music., But what makes it so amazing is the artistic brilliance & musical presence of Dan Greenwald. Make no bones about it - Greenwald is an amazing, somewhat undiscovered talent, in fact I Would say he's the next Shannon Hoon, or Jack White. I've often stated that music is not a dress rehearsal. Praise goes out to the artist that can deliver something truly magical beneath their veil of vanity. “The Workers’  with Dan Greenwald does exactly that. Song for song it’s one of the most amazing 18 minutes of music I’ve ever stumbled across. If your looking for a trip hop musical experience, with amazing psychedelic flair, & artistic brilliance that's one of a kind, then I highly recommend you jump hear first into “Theatre of the Distraught” by The Workers. What else can I say – it’s simply incredible!