Rubanq gets it. He understands that it is honesty and spirit, authenticity and emotion that determine whether a song succeeds or not. We live, as he knows all too well, in a world that favors musical poise and sonic polish, where bands work their songs up to a state of cold, charmless perfection, losing any personality, any humanity, any feeling along the way.
Not for him the studio gimmickry and clever production tricks, the guest rappers, and the associated dance routines; this is music made for all the right reasons, the same reasons that have powered music makers for millennia.
Taking themes of emotional manipulation, issues of trust, and ideas of self-delusion, “Charlatan of Love” is a wonderfully evolving song, one that ebbs and flows between understated acoustic picking and more driven beats, featuring lovely and lulling lows and sonic highs. The icing on the cake is the boy-girl vocals, which eventually reveal this to be a fantastic call-and-response duet.
This is the singer-songwriter sound infused with the intensity of grunge, folk music that taps into rawer, more rock-and-roll energies. Forget the 19-year-old gap year troubadours with their wide-brimmed hats and designer skinny jeans, informing us of the ways of the world from their vast experience; this is a song drawn from a life lived, built on maturity and understanding. More than that, it is music that comes from the heart….a battered, bruised, and bleeding heart.
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