With the new album The World Will Break Your Heart singer / songwriter Gary Van Miert through his musical vehicle The Sensational Country Blues Wonders! gives fans of Americana and roots music plenty to latch onto and love with an altogether vibrant collection of ten distinctly original and sometimes over the top wryly humorous songs.
“The music that inspired me was born in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee as well as in the Mississippi Delta,” Van Miert states. “I’ve always been interested in that point where blues, country and gospel music intersect. Elvis Presley and a few others captured lightning in a bottle in the 50s and changed the world.”
Using this mantra as inspiration and working in conjunction with Nashville Master Tracks, who took his guitar and vocal demos that he had sent them and added the instrumentation per his instructions, Van Miert brilliantly fuses classic country, blues, and gospel on this collection and deftly manages to achieve the commendable goal of honoring his influences while at the same time creating songs that gloriously stand on their own.
The common country music themes of love and heartache run profusely throughout with the highlights for me being the honky tonk smoker “Second Fiddle To A Steel Guitar,” the wonderfully jubilant “I Can Hear The Music Play,” the heartbreak soaked “Love Murders Your Heart,” the darkly witty “My Baby Stabbed Me With A Steak Knife” and the wonderfully inspiring “Privilege.”
A local cult figure in the Jersey City, NJ region of the country Van Miert with this, his first album of original material after releasing a covers only album in 2012, deserves to break out nationwide with this fresh and enjoyable spin on the Americana genre, a sight which would be delightfully entertaining to see and hear.
The World Will Break Your Heart by Gary Van Miert’s The Sensational Country Blues Wonders! is available on band camp here: https://thesensationalcountryblueswonders.bandcamp.com/album/the-world-will-break-your-heart and on Spotify .