The Place Between Moving and Standing Still by Joey Figgiani

The songs on Joey Figgiani's new album, The Place Between Moving And Standing Still, are like a collection of thumbnail sketches that will resonate with anyone brave enough to have taken this journey.

The album takes an early stop with "Black Boots," an Alternative rocker that recounts the experience of going from the security of childhood to the anonymity of high school. The song’s raunchy slide guitar is like a wake-up call for the listener, a reminder that adolescent rebellion is often a call for attention that is rarely answered. The very radio-friendly “Erase Me” thrusts the listener into the reality of an adult relationship and the downfall of relying on another for an identity and one’s own self-esteem. This track provides the stark realization of how easily we can be replaced and the importance of moving on once we have failed. Joey's bleak "winter turns to spring" in “California Air,” as we travel with him from New York to the California coast. With sweeping guitar flourishes and finger-picked chords equivalent to the rocking of a boat, the song conveys how the author is mistaken after expecting happiness to arise by changing locations. Instead, the promise and beauty of the “endless mountains in [his] reach” remain only a "realm of possibilities" that go unrealized.

After seeking fulfillment in a lover, a new place or other outside influence, we rarely come out without a scar or two. Joey’s moving Alternative song "Left a Scar" recalls the physical and emotional scars that often become the baggage on our journey.

In today's hectic world, many of us are in dire need of a more 'simple life': a time and place where individuals stayed connected in a much less connected world. With the internet being such an integral part of our recent lives, we are so easily drawn to others beyond our reach, leaving little time for those within our grasp. Inspired by his late grandfather’s passing, Joey's acoustic track "Simple Life" contemplates what caused his elder’s bitterness, and if in fact he was happier at a time when life was far simpler. The song furthers the question of whether human beings can find balance in the fast-paced world to which many of us have succumbed: a place (like the album’s title) between “complacenc[y]” and positive progression.

The album showcases an eclectic musical style, ranging from Pop Rock to Alternative, Americana to Delta Blues, showing Figgiani as a true artist who cannot be categorized by typical standards. Each song takes the listener to the depths of life’s most basic experiences, and reveals a meaning that grows more profound with each listen. The Place between Moving and Standing Still is sometimes smooth, often gritty, but always sincere. Any listener can identify with one, if not all, of the perspective from which Figgiani pens his songs.

For his previous album, Under the Memphis Sun, Joey joined forces with Elvis Presley's original band mates, DJ Fontana and The Jordanaires and recorded half the album in the legendary Sun Studio, Memphis. The Place between Moving and Standing Still, relies less on "star power" and more on the impact of profound lyrics and a musical pallet of richness, texture and color.

The Place between Moving and Standing Still is the perfect companion for anyone interested in “soaking up the Sweet Memories” of the past, indulging in the present, or enriching the experiences that lay ahead.

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