Escaping Pavement, Road Warrior Review
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Hailing from Michigan the duet of Emily Burns and Aaron Markovitz originally met as individual music makers in the blues open-mic circles; then they studied their craft together in California and wound up playing Top 40 hits for a cruise ship’s dance hall. After that, they started a southern rock-inclined neo-country quartet called Escaping Pavement. In 2014, the duo paired back down to a duo, but kept the namesake. The duet is organically adorned with just their voices, an acoustic guitar and a mandolin, they wrote and recorded an album The Night Owl (2016), that centrically focused on the Americana genre. Now, in 2019, their latest album Road Warriors, released on March 22, 2019, features a seasoned and explorative sound that resonates from nearly 150 shows, 30k miles and 23 states in 2018.
Positives:
Beautifully seasoned acoustic guitar, melded with singing mandolin and sweeter than honey harmonies, Escaping Pavement is back with a tour de force.
Bottom Line:
Markovitz has an exquisitely bluesy voice that can rivet the rooftiles with powerful force. Fueled by the graceful grit and fiery energy of their acoustic guitar, mandolin and swooning harmonies, Road Warriors offers finger licking good guitar solos and fast fingerwork by Burns on mandolin. Speaking of Burns, her darkly hued voice is impeccably resonate on “If I Ever Lose My Faith,” her divinely imbued vocals are sparkling. Road Warriors is inspired by the duet’s travels, escaping the pavement, but now they’re spending more time cruising across several interstate highways in a vintage Jayco RV and imparting those experiences through their music. That’s the short of it!