With first-time producer Andrew Scott (Sloan) at the helm, Steel City Trawler emerges as a cleverly assembled balance of Luke’s courageously straightforward assessments with the essential components of classic rock and roll.
Luke’s observation-driven commentaries are found in songs such as Thinking People, an homage to blue collars, The Ballad of Ian Curtis, an examination of suicide and creative legacy, and Dusted, which takes direct aim at metaphysical answers to earth-bound questions.
Not one to rest on his guitar playing laurels, Steel City Trawler is more about the song than the strum.
Hamilton’s own Harvey Pekar, David Collier, brings a Being John Malkovich style approach to Luke’s biography, with a kind of “inhabitation” of Luke’s world and experience. Alternately free from irony and at the same time somehow tongue-in-cheek Collier’s work is an original comic book interpretation of lyrics from the new songs, Hamilton’s geography and history, as well as Luke’s own life, past and present.