Charles Wecker - Lenticular Clouds (self-released)

Okay, be honest. How many of you had to look up what the titular “Lenticular Clouds” were? I certainly did, but that’s good. Gaining a new piece of knowledge always makes for a good day. And music such as this new one from Charles Wecker makes for a great day.

I get so used to being faced with overly clever lyrics built on metaphor and mystique, codes, and cryptic language that it is great to be faced with a song that is as honest and direct, not to mention poetic, as it seems. Okay, there may be some personal depth and allegory at work, but it is never the point of the song. What is the point is the idea of connection to the natural work and perhaps a sense of escape, something often much needed to allow us the space to make sense of the modern world. Time to think, rejuvenate, a time of recuperation, perhaps even, if we are lucky, revelation, so we can return refreshed to the fray: whatever form your own fray happens to take.

Over a deft blend of chiming folk guitar and country vibes, environmental imagery, and the big sky grandeur that you can only really get with Americana music, Wecker paints a picture of the natural world, from the big skies to the rolling plains to the vibrant seas, an inspiring and optimistic vista that makes us want to strive forward rather than glance back.

There is no call to action, no environmental message beyond the obvious one. That being this. Isn’t nature beautiful, awe-inspiring, majestic, and humbling? Even that is only inferred, never signaled.

No, this is a song made for all the right reasons, merely so the artist can pass on their sense of wonder when faced with such fantastic a phenomena as the world around us.

Simple, poignant, powerful…beautiful.

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