Great reviews for To Hell With These Streets

Radio NZ's The Sampler - looks at the record and Nick Bollinger likes what he hears. Take a listen.

"To Hell With These Streets is the most confident and most sonically engaging, as well as the most disgruntled album he’s made. But what’s extra impressive is the continuity with the rest of the music he’s made this decade. Greg Fleming is on a roll, and long may he roll." 

The record also made Elsewhere's 2016 best of list - among stellar company like Leonard Cohen and Chris Stapleton.

Rave review for "essential" new album

First major review is in for the new record and it's a good one.

This from Elsewhere's always incisive Graham Reid - full review here

"Fleming's lyrics of Liquor Store should appear in any new collection of contemporary New Zealand poetry... Because within 3.32 he tells us more about the pathetic and stupid “kids from around here” doing a dumb robbery with a “Made in China” plastic gun than any uni-poetry post-grad could ever do.

A not-even-news story delivered acoustically from within a character: “Closing time they break in the door . . . third time, six months . . . this ain't no ATM, you want money then try working on the weekend . . . I do what they say, name-tag on my shirt, they start calling me Sanjay, till's open . . . I live up on the second floor, my mother, my brother, my wife and three kids . . . TV came out to the store . .”

The final song Our Little Gang For Sophia is another miniature: this about a friend who committed suicide. In this instance it is a famous friend (“You know her name”) but he underplays the connection to give it universal meaning: “Our little gang . . . will never be the same . . .”)

And it just, tellingly, falters to a halt because the silence beyond is incomprehensibly sad.

Very rarely is the personal so poetic, the poetic so personal  . . . and the personal so political.

These are postcards from a place you don't want to be.

But they are from where you and I live.

And Fleming/Working Poor bring them home . . . uncomfortably.

Essential."

The record is available now on Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes and all streaming services...

To Hell With these Streets

First track off Greg Fleming and The Working Poor's new album To Hell With These Streets released

"I love albums but today it's all about tracks. So the challenge for this record was to make each track strong enough to stand on its own, " says Greg.

Life Is Short is a collaboration with producer Andrew Thorne (Working Poor guitarist and member of rock duo Modern Chair).

The full album - To Hell With These Streets - will be released in September on Forget The Past Records.

But fans wanting a more immersive listening experience will be pleased to hear the record's concept - a day-in-the-life of a city.

"Some will pick up on characters from earlier albums (2014's Forget the Past and last year's critically acclaimed Stranger In My Own Hometown), who are still rattling around the mean streets. I approached this album one like a crime novel - but with songs instead of chapters."

On the production process Greg says -

"I sent Andrew a few songs and this was the one he chose to work with. I love what he came up with - catchy, dark, and a little dirty - definitely an album highlight."

 

Life Is Short - produced, mixed and mastered by Modern Chair's Andrew Thorne.

Music and lyrics - Greg Fleming

Greg Fleming - vocals, dobro

Andrew Thorne - elec gtr, slide, bass.

 

Cover art and design Andrew B. White