They say that you should write about what you know. What Drew Danburry knows about, sadly all too well, is the heartache and difficulties of separation from his family and starting a new life elsewhere. I Should Have Known the Things You Never Said is a musical autobiography of that process, and as such, it is a very intimate and heartfelt album. These are more than just songs; they are personal diary entries, lyrical legacies, and bitter-sweet love letters. It is the sound of a man trying to work out where things went wrong, ordering his thoughts and doing so via the medium of music. This is an artist revealing their innermost thoughts and feelings, and at times, the listener feels like a voyeur; such is the honesty and depth of the album.
“High Tide” perhaps sets a tone about modern living and the pressures of relationships. The idea that we find ourselves “working so that we can live” is something familiar to most of us. And “Live. Give. Lose. Grow.” again goes deep into a relationship at breaking point, but there is optimism in the title itself, the idea that it is when we lose the things that are precious to us that we can find new ways to grow.
Musically, the songs wander between folk delicacy and indie infectiousness, ebbing and flowing between spaciousness and restraint but often underlining its lyrical points with more robust sonics.
“Painting” is a slow and seductive song, and crushing in the openness of its narrative, “The Sword and the Harp” grooves along on a fast country shuffle dressed in ethereal guitar lines and “Doctor! Doctor! is as lyrically stark and devastating as it is musically beautiful. That blend of light and shade, hope and despair, is a feature of the album and something that Drew does with alarming precision.
All too often, music is described as honest, heartfelt, intimate, and meaningful, but rarely does any of it compare to what we find on I Should Have Known the Things You Never Said. It is safe to say that in Drew Danburry, we have found not just a brave musical talent but one of the most important new commentators on modern life. Though he presents us with breathtaking sonic portraits of his own life, they are portraits in which we all too often see ourselves staring back.
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