Anthony W. Rogers: “High Five” (2023) Vinyl Review

Well, the pandemic is officially over, I’m being told, and masks are no longer necessary. Trump seems about to be finally held accountable for at least a few of his many transgressions. So things are getting back to normal. So why is it I still feel on edge? Why is it that everything still feels so bloody precarious? We can’t blame it all on the artificial intelligence that will be soon running and ruining our lives. Can we? Things are definitely still strange out there. And so we need some music that will help combat that with its own weird energy. Fight the odd with the odd. Enter Anthony W. Rogers, the musician and songwriter who helped us get through the Trump years with his 2018 release, One Day (A Journal), and the pandemic with his 2021 release, Oblivious (the debut release from his project Babyflow). His new album, High Five, features all original material. This one is largely a solo effort, though he does have some folks joining him on certain instruments on various tracks. Bart Lay plays percussion and bells, and delivers some vocal work, and Steve Heare is on drums and percussion on many of the tracks.

Side A

The album opens with a greeting. “How ya doin’, my friend?” he asks at the beginning of “Whether You Get Me,” then says, “Well, it seems like a long time.” Yes, though time is one of those things that makes less and less sense to me. This song has a friendly and loose vibe, inviting us to come closer. These lines also stand out to me: “In a place where I can do everything wrong/In a place where there’s no one caring to change my mind.” There is something appealing in that, isn’t there? Because, let’s face it, we’re going to get a lot wrong, and so the thought of being in a place where that’s okay, well, is comforting. And a place where one opinion is not trying to dominate others feels like the place to be, for, as this song seems to remind us, no one really knows anything. Blake Rogers plays both trumpet and keyboards on this track, and Joe Rogers provides a bit of vocal work. This track also features some good work on guitar. That’s followed by “Missed It.” With this one, the beat is central to its sound, to its effectiveness, to its appeal, right from the start. In fact, there is a playful vocal bit at the very beginning, like a non-drummer trying to give a drummer an idea of what he’s looking for. Anyway, at one point he asks, “How did we miss it back then?” That question seems emphasized by the slight pause in the music immediately following it. It’s interesting how questions figure prominently in both of the record’s first two tracks. That works for me, because I feel these days we have more questions than answers.

“Slow Boat Ride” is a mellower number, featuring some really nice vocal work that reminds me of the softer side of 1970s music. This one too offers a question within its lyrics: “Is there a place for the ones who cannot forgive?” There is something beautiful about this song, largely in the vocal work. Then we get “Frog Eyes.” On the back of the record jacket, “Slow Boat Ride” and “Frog Eyes” are listed in reverse order. This track too features some really nice vocal work, and has a pleasant vibe, with some interesting changes. This song makes me smile each time I listen to it. Then in the second half, the sounds of waves and seagulls place us at the ocean. Or is it a memory of the ocean that we hear? And is that memory becoming fragmented, as the music seems to suggest toward the end? Or is it the present that is unraveling? As the waves come in, we can contemplate that if we wish. Then “Kensington” begins with the sounds from a street. This one deals with memory. Doesn’t your mind drift back to earlier times while you’re on the road? Mine certainly does. “Yesterday tomorrow on my mind today.” And some lines, in their gravity, might catch you off guard. The song slows down halfway through, dreamlike, while a steady pulse emerges. There is some really nice work by Rich Norwood on saxophone that also seems to urge us to explore our memories, to find something specific within them. I love the unusual jam at the end, with the saxophone prominent. One thing that makes this jam so good is that I don’t know exactly where it’s going to take us. There is a psychedelic bent to it, while the steady beat simultaneously keeps it grounded. This ends up being one of my favorite tracks of the record. It leaves us with sounds of street, of vehicles passing.

Side B

The second side of the record opens with a bang. “All Saints” has a great energy from the start, grabbing us, almost like a rousing number from a musical. And it gets wonderfully strange at one point, right about the time he mentions “fake news.” Fans of Frank Zappa will find much to admire about this section of the track. “The fox he strolls through the countryside/Eating chickens and terrorizing farms/And sleeping on the pastures and the lawns.” This song is so damn good, and is another of my personal favorites. “It’s all about character.” The music becomes more insistent, driving forward. That’s followed by “The Sky King Of Georgetown,” one of the album’s odder tracks, in its sound. Voices come to us from some hazy mountaintop that could very well be a cloud formation created by electric guitars, and we are caught in a narcotic slow-motion ascension that might make you feel uneasy. But the saxophone returns exactly when we need it, to make us feel a bit more grounded. And then we are torn between wanting to reach for what might seem like reality and wishing to drift farther into this dreamlike realm.

Anthony W. Rogers then switches gears with “West Virginia,” which has something of a sweet pop vibe. And hey, speaking of reality, this song mentions “a conference table in Suite C.” What object is better able to set us in normality than a conference table? Also, how many other songs can you think of that mention conference tables? There is The Chi-Lites’ “There Will Never Be Any Peace (Until God Is Seated At The Conference Table),” of course, but any others?  “People wasting my time.” Interestingly, there are some solid rock moments here, but we are never in that place, or any particular place for that matter, too long. “It didn’t even matter that I was there/Didn’t matter at all.” And at the end he sings, “I’m not playing that game,” another line that stands out for me, in part because I’ve been finding myself saying it quite a bit lately. Time to make some changes, you know? “West Virginia” is followed by “Slava Ukraini,” which means “Glory to Ukraine,” the slogan a cry of resistance to foreign aggression. There is a somber and urgent feel as this one begins, a heavier feel than the other tracks, feeling physical as well as spiritual. It is music that attempts to soothe, attempts to rouse, and attempts to help us make sense of it all, to emerge from a dark moment intact. And Rich Norwood delivers some excellent work on saxophone. Then a bright rock sense emerges in the album’s final track, “Not Waiting.” Here is a taste of the lyrics: “Wrapped in a fantasy of yesterday/Someone comes along and makes it all right/No Easter Bunny hopping round here/Got no Santa Claus in sight/So I start work tonight.” This track has a surprising nod to The Sound Of Music, followed by a Led Zeppelin reference.

Record Track List

Side A

1. Whether You Get Me
2. Missed It
3. Slow Boat Ride
4. Frog Eyes
5. Kensington

Side B

1. All Saints
2. The Sky King Of Georgetown
3. West Virginia
4. Slava Ukraini
5. Not Waiting

High Five was released on May 1, 2023 on Wildflow Records. As with One Day (A Journal) and Oblivious, it is a limited run of only 250 vinyl copies, so I recommend grabbing one as soon as you can. It is also available digitally, but that isn’t nearly as cool.