Everyone needs a breather now and then, a bit of a rest to come back recharged, refreshed, and ready for the fray. But come on, Brendan, 19 years might be pushing it a bit. Or so I thought until I dropped the needle on his latest album, Slightly Out of Focus, a set of astute and interesting, not to mention exciting songs, and wondered if he could have written this album, which is so obviously built on nearly 2 decades of life and loss, of experience and awareness, wisdom, and worldliness, way back then. We will never know; just be thankful it is here now.
Describing the album as a singer-songwriter vibe expanded via a fuller band sound is accurate, but it also misses its unique charms. It is that, but through every lyrical line and sonic move, you are dragged emotionally towards the artist and feel the echoes of an emotion-filled life. These are not just songs; they are compelling confessions, personal diary entries, acts of vulnerability, a sonic heart being worn openly and authentically and honestly on the artist’s sleeves.
If ‘My Existence (No Not Today)’ opens with a driven and perhaps jaunty tune, it is the darker layers and personal lyrics that balance those out, a duality that I notice in all of my favorite artists. ‘Second Son’ takes this wonderful juxtaposition further, the music slower, glacial in places, grungy and primal.
‘I Don’t Want to Go’ is bluesy and broken, a mournful violin (?) line gliding gracefully across the surface of dark sonic waters; ‘Here With You’ takes an indie-folk vibe into tense territory as he pours his heart out, and the album resolves in the same blend of more accessible music and lyrics that seem to be saying so much between the lines. This is an iceberg of an album, most of its meaningful mass lying way below the surface that you encounter through merely listening to the music.
Many albums are made to fulfill a contractual obligation or because an artist needs the attention; Slightly Out of Focus is an album that would, I feel, Brendan Ranney would have been compelled to make whether anyone was listening or not.
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