• Some Kind Of Kindness

In 2005, Firewater's Tod A embarked on what would become a three year sabbatical through the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and South East Asia. He had recently split with his wife; George W.

Bush had just been re-elected; New York, his home for the last 20 years, had become a cold and foreign place. He wasn't even sure he wanted to make music anymore. 'I was extremely depressed. The NYC skyline looked like bad wallpaper to me. It was either kill myself or hit the road,' he says. He put everything he owned in storage and left NYC with a few clothes and a laptop. The journey Tod undertook would challenge him creatively in ways he couldn't have imagined in its planning stages.

'I traveled overland starting in Delhi, India, across the Thar Desert, then through Rajasthan, onward through the Punjab, and into Pakistan,' he recounts. 'I had originally planned to continue overland through Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, ending in Istanbul.'

But things didn't go exactly as planned. Along the way he was drugged, robbed, detained, and later struck down with severe intestinal problems. Travelers were disappearing along the road to Kabul.

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The Golden Hour by Firewater, released 06 May 2008 1. This Is My Life 3. Some Kind of Kindness 4. A Place Not So Unkind 6. Banghra Bros 8.

As Tod puts it, 'I was forced to end my trip at the Khyber Pass on the Afghan border, due to general ill health and the unnerving likelihood of kidnapping.' Recording with a single microphone and a laptop in his pack, he captured performances with a vast array of musicians across India and Pakistan-and eventually Turkey and Israel. Bhangra and sufi percussion would form the basis for the songs he wrote along the way-songs about the world he left behind ('This Is My Life', 'Electric City'), politics ('Borneo', 'Hey Clown'), and dislocation ('6:45', 'Feels like the End of the World'). Tod's acerbic wit shines on The Golden Hour, elucidating both the beauty and the absurdity of the world. Firewater drummer Tamir Muskat (now also of Balkan Beat Box) produced, mixed and played on the album, along with a strange cast of characters from 5 different countries.

Tod tells the story of the trip in a short video, which includes footage from his travels. He also chronicled his experiences on his travel blog, Postcards from the Other Side of the World.

In photography, the golden hour is when the sunlight is at the perfect angle to capture beautiful images; in the medical world, it's the window of time where a life can still be saved after severe injuries. Both meanings could apply to The Golden Hour, Firewater's first album of original material in four years: it's a musical travelogue of the three years Tod A. Spent in India, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia (which he also chronicled in the blog Postcards from the Edge of the World) after his divorce and the reelection of President George W.

Bush in 2004, and each song is like a vibrant, sometimes violent, snapshot along the way. S travels were no vacation - if anything, there's a sharper edge to his songwriting here than in years, and combined with the contributions of local musicians from each country, The Golden Hour is some of Firewater's most consistently potent music. The album underscores its concept by kicking off with 'Borneo,' a jaunty, pissed-off exit song listing all the reasons for leaving the U.S. ('You got a monkey for a president' is near the top) with theatrical flair, and from there, A. And crew - including drummer/producer Tamir Muskat of Balkan Beat Box - find ways to dance on their troubles with quintessentially Firewater songs like 'Hey Clown,' 'Already Gone,' and 'Three Legged Dog.'

The band ups the ante with 'This Is My Life,' where the tumba, chimta, and dholki of the native musicians (many of whom normally play in the backing bands for belly dancers) add an extra spark to the song's already fiery rhythm. But for every brash moment on The Golden Hour, there is an equally vulnerable one, whether it's the cautionary tales of 'Paradise' and 'A Place Not So Unkind' or 'Six Forty Five,' an elegant ballad filled with emptiness as it wanders from sunset to sunrise. On 'Weird to Be Back,' Tod A. Notes that 'everything's the same or maybe just a little worse,' but that can't be said of The Golden Hour - it's some of Firewater's angriest, most poignant, and most accomplished music.

Some Kind Of Kindness

Heather Phares.