When none other than Mike Scott of The Waterboys fame describes an artist as “Scott Walker-esque pop”, it is fair to say that you have my attention. A long-term hero of mine referencing a musical legend to entice me to check out a new artist? Consider me enticed. Plus, it is a Dimple Discs release, a label that has introduced me to so many great artists, especially the sound of a here-and-now, happening, grassroots Ireland.
That Season Changes is Ger Eaton’s debut album comes as a shock given the depth and delicacy found here, a breathtaking blend of sonic beauty and creative brains. A break-up album perhaps, but one like few you have heard before, not for Eaton that usual feeling sorry for himself, mopey and maudlin schtick, instead he turns heartache into harmony, pain into ecstatic beauty, sorrow into a sensational suite of songs.
“Home Again” feels like an album peaking, a blend of folky psychedelia and pastoral pop, a soundscape strewn with shuffling beats and distant, muted trumpets, seductive spoken word, and almost oriental cascades of strings. And then you realise that this is only song three!
Any thoughts of hitting such sonic highs too early are dismissed again and again thanks to the Beatle-esque (well, McCartney-esque at least) string-soaked gorgeousness of “Heaven Knows;” the acoustic drives and finessed folk of *Phoenix (Reborn); the upswell of euphoric Mariachi sounds of “The Time It Takes to Fall,” an energy that is soon balanced by a sweep of brooding vocals and dark intent. You could almost describe the album as all peaks, no troughs…though that is not to imply that there is no dynamic ebb and flow and no variance, the total opposite is true.
Before you know it, the title track is playing you out, a blend of strange, Celtic musical collisions and sonic collusions that slowly become a subdued and seductive, understated and artful marker of the passing of the year and its changing moods.
Season Changes is simply stunning. A lush, rich, and rewarding soundscape in the style of Brian Wilson or a more adorned and ornate take on Nick Drake.
Baroque ‘n’ roll at its finest.
Season Changes album
Bandcamp
Hollow
The Time It Takes To Fall
