What does it sound like?:
Melancholy. There’s no way around it. That the cheeriest song on the album is called ‘Until You Were Gone’ gives you some measure of how chirpy the whole thing gets, nevertheless you never feel depressed by it. There’s a sort of mournful nobility about the record that prompts people to mutter things like ‘well crafted’ and ‘organic’.
What does it all *mean*?
You still can’t beat a man with an acoustic guitar telling stories.
Goes well with…
Dim lights and thick smoke.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
Townes van Zandt, John Prine, Slaid Cleaves.
Sounds very promising. I’m off to find one of his songs to bung on my Storytelling thread!
He played at Southern Fried last year supporting Rosanne Cash and was pretty chipper in between the songs. On breaking a string on his one guitar he shifted to piano for the rest of his set and was an accomplished player reminiscent of Randy Newman. The queue for interval sales of his albums rivalled the bar!
This wasn’t as instant a hit with me as his first album From the Ground Up. It is a pretty sad album like you say and a lot more introspective – but I found the songs really grew on me on repeated listens and now I think it’s just as good as the first, although different in emotional tone. Hopefully his life will have changed for the better by the time his songs are written for the third album! Although sad songs are good too.
Loved the last one, but my collection is getting a bit top-heavy with guitar toting country noir doomsmiths.
Or maybe it’s me…….
Ah, but there’s quite a lot of piano on this one, Retro!