Give it another month or two and, if it isn’t already, I guarantee this will be everybody’s favourite album. Perfectly made to compliment balmy, sunny days, a bottle of chilled Chardonnay and the good company of old friends.
Apparently JOSH ROUSE has had something of a tough life, a wild youth, a battle with the booze and a failed marriage but if you’re expecting the music of a disenchanted, cynical and bitter man then forget it. This music doesn’t have a bitter bone in it’s body and when Rouse sings, during opener ‘It’s The Nighttime’, “When you look as good as you do” you know he’s relating to that life confirming moment when the heart pumps a little faster with that delicious mixture of awe, trepidation and lust.
The run in to next song ‘Winter In The Hamptons’ starts with "ba, ba, ba’s" and chiming guitars and name me one other person who could sing of forecasted rain-clouds and make it sound so goddam bring it on, right? The instrumental backing is light of touch and moves around his voice lifting and swinging it through the song.
Slightly more morose but still able to create a sense of uplifting is ‘Streetlights’, strings and mandolin pushing it to the middle eight where the voice, reaching for it’s higher register, takes on the same ‘wide eyed innocent’ quality that Jim James infuses into My Morning Jacket records.
‘Middle School Frown’ is sumptuous, the vocals seeming more vulnerable than elsewhere, the music on a soulful groove to tell a tale of love for the school rebel, the outsider, the one who dares to be different. Similarly, ‘Saturday’ employs a soulfully, breezy glide, reminiscent of the Isley Brothers or Lambchop and for a couple of lines of the verse lifts the melody straight from ‘My Girl’.
|
Even when the mood does dip, as in ‘Sad Eyes’, with it’s lonesome piano and mournful voice it all proves to be a red herring when, without warning the whole thing lifts into a string drenched finale that takes you back to the mid-70’s and any number of classic pop tunes - without ever really bringing any one particularly song to mind. In contrast, ‘Why Won’t You Tell Me What’ stomps and carouses over a rolling blues piano and chanted backing vocals, the most upbeat track on the record.
Final track, ‘Life’ sums up Rouse’s attitude and outlook perfectly, over a lazily contented backing he sings, “Life is good, sometimes its bad / it has its ups, it has its downs / just sing a song and feel alright, ‘cos that’s just life”. Perhaps a tinge of regret, empathy definitely, but bitterness? Never.
|
