City of Champions is the first solo album from co-founder of the venerable Gentlemen Losers, Harvey Barham. It is a themed album about life in Duncanville, TX and it opens at “3 a.m. in Duncanville” with a great opening melodic riff and a sound similar to Gary Louris (of The Jayhawks). Barham’s vocals are low, but effective here. It goes through a description of the struggling area, where “all the girls are virgins/ all the boys are nerds” – it’s ain’t Lake Woebegon, folks. The liner notes chronicle the transformation of the suburbs from a utopia to a bit of a disaster area. The alt.country slices of life on “My Sweet Tragedy” and “Main Street” are great songs with hook filled choruses and colorful lyrics. And this is where Barham excels – my favorite song here “Some Are Just Happy” is a sharp critique of Texas life sung with sweetness and smooth guitar. The weary ballad “Nothin’ I Do” is a total resignation of everything, even admitting “you’re tired of this tune” which is a bit of Wilco bleakness and ELO violins that recall “Mr. Kingdom” a little. I kinda dug this one a lot too – it’s so damn honest. The latter half of this album also recalls The Honeydogs, as the songs get more into the town’s disintegration (“Tired Of This Town”), but it ends with the slightly hopeful “Little One.” Every song here is well written and the arrangements are superb. The albums dark undercurrent can get oppressive at times, but that’s the general theme here. The website is impressive too, as the city of Duncanville, TX is layed out in detail with sample streaming tracks for each “news” item listed. You have to remember this is about an album about life in this small Texas community. It could be any town in America now, even yours. So listen up.