He's singing in the dark, just beyond the halo of your porch light. Sounds like he's comfortable there. A  low rumble of a voice -  smoldering, combustible, seeping like smoke through the seams in the walls.

     His name's Josh Roy Brown, and maybe you've not seen him before. But he's been around - you can hear it in and between the lines of the potent, rootsy Americana rock of his debut CD Can't Look Back .

     Lurking in the wings, back by the amplifiers with a guitar slung low, he's been biding his time until it felt right to step into the spotlight, up to the mic and within earshot. At last the moment has been grabbed and wrangled into a soul-stirring collection of twelve tunes. There's something to be said for impatience. "I've waited" he intones in "This Time", "For all the right opportunities/ And chances are I'll wait for an eternity...But this time I'm gonna give you all that I can."

     The songs tell their own stories - everything from bittersweet 20/20 hindsight ("Never Saw Her Coming") to downright crime of passion (the title track) to self assertion in the face of a checkered past ("Here I Am"). But they tell Josh Roy Brown's story as well.

     His Dad is Les Brown - writer of country standard "Abilene" (the only song he ever wrote and he wrote it in the bathtub). Les and upstart Albert Grossman (future Dylan manager) started the The Gate Of Horn, Chicago's legendary folk club. Along the way Les wooed a Southern Belle and into this colorful mix of sound and excitement Joshua Roy Brown was born. A pivotal dinner with Johnny Cash so impressed a pre-teen Josh that he decided on his life's path right there.

     The 80s found our hero on the streets of NYC's East Village (for which "Back in the Old Days" is a rockin' requiem) and now, looking back, the debris in his path contains several bands, adventures on the road, misadventures in the boardroom, a few heartbreaks. A good recipe for songs, eleven of which have made their way on to Can't Look Back (the twelfth is a ragged-but-right cover of "Abilene"). It sounds like everything's worked out for the best. Past mistakes and wrong turns never sounded so good.

     Josh's band, The Living Bejeezus, frames his distinctive baritone and passionately executed guitar playing with a solid foundation that anchors and swaggers, pulses and pounds. With simpatico producer Dan Grigsby at the helm, Can't Look Back stakes out a compelling and original emotional landscape.

      Listen as Josh outwits time and loss by bravely calling them out on the tiles ("Sleeping Underwater"); watch him proudly display the scars left by a wanton love like a drinking buddy showing off a fresh tattoo ("Changin'"); hear him celebrate the abiding warmth of the homefires ("Going Home"). It's all here. "This time, this time" sings Josh Roy Brown, "I'm gonna get it right." Indeed. 

Can't Look Back.

No need to.