Steady as We Go is the perfect title for an artist whose songs always feel calm and measured, perfectly edited down to what is only absolutely necessary, restrained, and sonically humble. And it is an attitude that also finds its way into Nathaniel Paul’s lyrics too, right from the first song, the delicate and deft “Over the Water” he is asking us “please don’t race to throw life away,” instead advocating that we take the time to make the most of every moment we are granted.
And this opening song also sets the tone for the music to follow. Like the rest of the album, it is largely unadorned acoustic folk music, featuring a voice, the cascade of picked strings, and very little else. Honest and authentic, music made a million miles away from the usual studio gimmicks and the over-produced, over-polished but often underwhelming music of the modern age.
The title track is splendidly spacious, the brief harmonica fleeting through all it needs to fill out the brave sparsity of the song and “The Girl With No Tattoo,” which I think was my first venture into Nathaniel Paul’s music, is a song that reminds us that, to quote a friend of mine, “you don’t put a bumper sticker on a Lamborghini.” Very true. “It’s All Blue,” which feels like a song built from the pauses between music, the breath between the words, rather than a song made of music itself, perfectly rounds the album off.
In a world of fabrication and shortcuts, enhancements and supposed fast tracks, finding an artist whose simple elegance and sonic eloquence remind us of what fifties folk clubs and sixties coffeehouses might have sounded like feels like is a very special sonic gem indeed.
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