Life & Love is the second album from New York City pianist, singer and songwriter Hans Chew. After receiving 4-star reviews in both Rolling Stone and Uncut magazine for his debut Tennessee & Other Stoires..., Hans Chew returns with his eagerly anticipated follow-up Life & Love.
Classic Rock magazine calls Life & Love “an excellent album, a further development of the sound Chew revealed on his debut Tennessee & Other Stories...”, while Popmatters proclaims the album “Dixie-fried rock ’n’ roll awesomeness...a barn burning smoker of a record that’s simply irresistible.” Life & Love is the sonic snapshot of a full-fledged rock and roll spectacle. Led by Chew on grand piano and vocals, with Dave Cavallo (guitar), Ricardo Ortiz (bass), and Jesse Wallace (drums), Life & Love transports the listener into the full experience of the band's immediate raw power.
Chew says, “If the inspiration for Tennessee... was rebirth from a death state, then Life & Love comes from the experience of negotiating life after rebirth.” Dealing with the reality of life and the role that love plays in it, conceptually Life & Love isn't complex. Its imagery however, betrays another reality: through the course of the album the listener will encounter the creation and rise of civilization, temptation from across the railroad tracks, the cool hand of the goddess of mercy, a marriage between a nymph and the son of Zebedee, the ripping open of space and time, and last but not least, the Junco Partner himself. With plenty of blues, country, soul, and the distinct influence of British and southern American classic rock, the album's sound stands firmly on tradition as it bares its teeth.
Life & Love is available through At The Helm Records and Proper Music Distribution. Recorded at Spin Studios in New York City by Paul Suarez and mastered by Patrick Klem. The album cover was painted by Melodie Provenzano.