I’m proud to say that Berwick is a friend of mine, and Peter knows me well enough to know that I’d call bullshit if he dared to deliver anything short of greatness. No worries, ‘cause Give It Time is his latest, a near-perfect melding of country and rock music, Berwick channeling the reckless energy and boundless enthusiasm of Hank Williams and Elvis Presley in creating an album that leans heavily towards the punk side of the cowpunk equation, the singer and songwriter sounding as pissed-off and proud as any nineteen-year-old. After decades suffering the indignities and insults of the music biz, Berwick remains a streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm, and with Give It Time he’s once again rolled the bones and come up with snake-eyes.
The album-opening “Renegade” is a defiant statement of purpose, an outlaw credo delivering with an unimaginable fury that is as hardcore punk in spirit as anything that you’ll hear from either the punk-rock or alt-country crowd. With unbridled guitars chomping at your eardrums, syncopated rhythms and fierce vocals deliver the (autobiographical?) tale of living fast, dying young, and leaving behind a burned-out corpse. Berwick slows the pace only slightly for “I Keep Waiting”, an unabashed rocker with a heart of gold, swirling guitars and bash-crash rhythms creating a disconcerting wall of sound on top of which Berwick lays down his whiskey-soaked vocals and one of the greasiest, most fulfilling guitar solos you’ll ever hear. In the distant background, Jason Botka’s honky-tonk piano-pounding sounds like the din creeping out of a back-alley barroom.
“Won’t Give It Up” is another crucified rocker that displays Berwick’s deft touch as a wordsmith, the song’s blistering soundtrack pumped up by Berwick’s non-stop verbal barrage. Shaking a bloody fist at the record-making establishment, Berwick spits out muscular lines like “you wanna see scars, I got ‘em”; “the world don’t care if you live or die, one man laughs while another cries”; and “gotta make a stand for something, ain’t settling for nothing”; and “tell me are you really satisfied, do you think that it’s too late to try, maybe for you but not for me…I won’t give it up!” Nashville’s star-making machinery may have turned its back on Berwick and his fellow travelers on the fringe of “polite” country music, but this is one hombre that ain’t going down without a fight, not while there’s still one last breath and a chance to spit in authority’s face.
Even the ballads on Give It Time (“My Heart Is On Hold”) rattle and clank like rusty machinery beneath the weight of the songwriter’s angst and frustration. Berwick imbues the song with so much heartache and anguish that you’ll bury your head under the bedcovers for a week if you approach the tune without caution. None of the songwriting-by-committee that creates many of Music Row’s hits these days comes anywhere close to expressing the sort of emotion and fire that you’ll find in “My Heart Is On Hold,” the song’s conflicted protagonist turning his back on love to venture off into the uncertain badlands walked by lonesome wanderers from Ricky Nelson and Dion to Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle. To lighten up the load a bit after better than a half-dozen mind-numbing exercises in seriously heartfelt songwriting, the humorous rave-up “Beer” is a cleverly glib ode to that golden-brown honky-tonk beverage favored worldwide.
Berwick is an outlaw and outcast by choice, not by marketing, and the magic displayed by “Falling From the Circle of Love” shows that he can write commercial country fare with the best of ‘em…hell, better than just about any of them, really, and some smart label suit could score a big hit for one of his artists with this elegant love song. That would make ol’ Pete a bundle of well-deserved cash, and besides, nobody is going to do the song better, Berwick’s leathery vocals standing in stark contrast to the song’s elegant construction and Botka’s wonderful piano-work. “The Sadness In Your Eyes” is another fine romantic moment, kind of bittersweet and tear-stained but evidence of the deepness of Berwick’s talent, a Dylanesque ballad with sweeping grandeur and finely-crafted lyrics that, again, in the right hands, could earn the songwriter a truck full o’ cash and accolades. Berwick’s breaking-heart delivery could never be equaled, however, his weathered vocals balanced on the edge of tears, accompanied by female backing harmonies and a filigree acoustic guitar solo that is simply outstanding.
Ten songs in, you figure that Give It Time has run its course, and you’d be as wrong as you could be to overlook “When”. This epic stream-of-consciousness rant is Berwick’s “Eve of Destruction”, his “Jungleland”, his “Positively 4th Street” all rolled into one massive, monster, six-minute-plus song. “When” opens with a spacey, almost psychedelic guitar-driven intro before Berwick’s battered acoustic chimes in and the vocals jump off… “how long must we wait” Berwick screams towards the heavens. “As the road goes on and on, how will we know when we are there?” he asks, “time is a deceiver that’s got us in its grasp.” Hell, Berwick throws out enough ideas, concepts, and questions in this one tune to fuel six or eight other songs. Man’s longstanding philosophical conundrums are echoed in Berwick’s existential “how long must we wait?” In this case, though, the song only gets stronger, louder, and more strident as it rolls along, Berwick’s tone growing in urgency, his questions more potent, his anger and frustration more apparent as the instrumentation swells to a cacophonic assault. It’s like Berwick’s brain busted open and all the shit that’s been mugging him for years comes pouring out in one powerful, uncensored blast of white light/white heat. In the end, no answers are to be had, just a song that is rock ‘n’ roll at its core, and the nagging, enduring final question “how long must we wait?”
A lot of pundits have spilled a lot of ink (and electrons) talking about the end of the music industry…well, Pete Berwick is dancing on the graves of all those Music Row naysayers, and with Give It Time he takes the D.I.Y. aesthetic to an entirely different level. There are few artists that will create an album this personal, this emotional, and this powerful in this year, or any other for that matter…the kids on the indie-rock tip just aren’t ready and willing to reveal themselves so openly, no matter what little lyrical clues they send their audience. Give It Time is the real deal, though, a postcard from the edge from a middle-aged country-rocker who has looked into the abyss and stomped all over his inner demons, doubts, and frustrations to emerge on the other side even stronger and more pissed off than before. Let’s hope that Berwick continues to make music as engaging, vulnerable, and potent as that on Give It Time, ‘cause dammit, the man is speaking for all of us who want, and deserve something better from our entertainment than Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts. (Shotgun Records)
Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2011
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