Pete Price’s “Better Angels,” the latest sonic slice from his contemplative Americana opus Pictures in Time, plays like a voicemail left on the soul’s answering machine. It’s a desperate Hail Mary across the digital divide—part confession, part daydream, part spiritual autopsy. And man, it aches just right.
From the first acoustic strum and those weary opening lines—“Ain’t been the same since you’ve been gone / But now I’m picking up the phone”—we’re in the trenches with a man navigating the battlefield of memory and remorse. This isn’t just a breakup song. It’s a meditation on timing, courage, and that uniquely human hell called “what if.”
Price, a journeyman guitarist and veteran voice from the Ohio circuit, doesn’t dress up his pain in metaphor or irony. He serves it straight, warm, and neat, like a good bourbon at last call. His voice is all gravel and gravity, the kind you believe instantly—like he’s lived every line, fought every ghost, and worn every scar.
“Better Angels” unfolds like a short film in slow motion. The protagonist—some poor bastard haunted by the idea that he might still have a chance—makes the call. We ride shotgun through the ring-ring agony, every tick of silence echoing with the weight of years. When voicemail picks up, it’s not just a plot twist. It’s emotional checkmate.
There’s no chorus explosion here. No hero’s arc. Just the humble hope of redemption: “Maybe there’s a way / We could live another day / If we can find our better angels.” It’s Lincoln meets Leonard Cohen—a prayer dressed in jeans and flannel, half-lit by the fading glow of a dashboard.
The production, helmed by Jeff Tutt at Triangle Road Studio, is understated in the best way. Violin weeps just where it should, the rhythm section tiptoes behind the narrative like it’s afraid to wake a sleeping memory, and Price’s guitar lays the bed where regret curls up next to longing. It’s a band of believers playing like they’ve been there too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5OugBWso2I
This track is no algorithm-chasing single. It won’t trend on TikTok. But in the right moment—driving home past midnight, heart cracked open just enough—it could damn well save someone.
Pete Price has always had one foot in the storytelling legacy of Browne and Fogelberg, but “Better Angels” finds him standing alone, candle in the dark, searching the static for a second chance. The beauty is in the not-knowing. Did she ever call back? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that he called.
And in that moment of reaching—of trembling hand on the dial—we find something close to grace. –Lonnie Nabors