Sanford: - Extinguished Dreams (Sanford Music)

Sanford: makes extremely ornate music. Not in the way that so many sadly do, deliberately complex or overblown, but in the same way that you can appreciate a fine tapestry, a seamless blend of intricate sonic hues and musical motifs that are often as delightful as they are unexpected. His latest album, Extinguished Dreams is a collection of a dozen such songs that exhibit these qualities.

To push the needlework metaphor to a near-breaking point, Sanford: uses soul, rock, and Americana threads to weave his deft and delicious design. The budding needlepoint buff will also see cool country cross stitches, prog-rock embroidery and sumptuous pop patterns subtly and supply making themselves known. Right, enough of the analogy; on to the reality!

There is a certain style of music that defies easy classification; it’s the sort of music that, in the right pair of hands, often ends up being labeled classic and, over time, finds mass appeal with all types of music fans. Well, Sanford: is exactly the right pair of hands, listen to tracks like “The Way Out” or “The Cotton Hill Memorial Barbecue,” and you get the feeling that you have been listening to them all your life, even though one sounds like a country rock classic, the other a soul-jazz instrumental soundtrack.

And if that seems like a lot of ground to cover, that is just the tip of the iceberg. “Wait and See” is a mercurial, New Wave-infused piece, “Sunrise” is spacious and drifting, ambient and atmospheric, and “Carolina’s Better” is what rock and roll would have sounded like if it had been based on the ukulele rather than the electric guitar. (We missed a trick there.)

It’s a great album. It’s an exciting album. An eclectic album. If you buy one album this week, make it Extinguished Dreams. If you buy two, get this twice and give it to a friend. They will thank you for it, trust me.

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