There may be something of the old-school singer-songwriter-as-autobiographer about Kyle Davis, but then, why not? It’s a style that has never gone out of fashion, especially when it is done this well. So rather than try to move in the sonic wind to accommodate whatever fad or fashion the current zeitgeist is pushing, he merely writes the songs that come naturally to him, and that resulting honesty and authenticity stand out a mile.
Jericho, his latest album, is about as open and personal as it gets, a “A poignant reflection on loss, resilience, and the fragments of ourselves we fight to reclaim,” to quote the man himself, and songs on such themes can only ring true if they are as honest, uncomprimised and vulnerable as the ones found here.
It is an album that ebbs and flows between more upbeat yet poignant folk-rock, such as the opener, “The Last Line,” to the hushed piano of “Now and Again,” an understated and reflective Billy Joel-esque ballad. The title track is a rootsy-pop piece, sophisticated and seductive, sure to find favor with the more discerning music fan and the pop-picker alike.
If “World Stop Turning” has the same vibe as Jackson Browne at his most mainstream-accessible, “Passengers” rounds the album off with a philosophical sentiment and a poised sonic soundscape.
And as much as I keep trying to fit these songs into a sonic pigeon-hole, to label them with a generic tag, they share that illusive quality that all classic albums in the making share, that they simply go beyond such simple classification.
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