AMG Review of Pictures and Sound

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

Pictures and Sound is actually the project of ex-Blue Merle frontman Luke Reynolds, the multi-instrumentalist who's accompanied by bassist Dave Wilder and drummer Pete McNeal on what essentially amounts to his self-titled debut album. Pictures and Sound is at once sincere and bland, offering fairly mainstream rock in which the numerous varying shades tend to blend into a samey batch when heard whole. Reynolds' fervently earnest vocals have a slightly pained tone suggestive of suppressed hurt, complementing lyrics reflective of an uncertain soul investigating life's ambiguities. As he sings in one song, his thoughts seems pulled in "100 Directions" (none of them right, of course) at once, the melodies more often than not inclined toward a moody and introverted state of mind. His tunes and observations are well-crafted but unremarkable, "Every War" being the least typical owing to the presence of Willie Nelson as a guest second vocalist.