Score: 7.5/10
Anytime a rock album materializes that SOUNDS like a full band, but names as its moniker just one individual, “ego” and “hubris” seem like logical pejoratives to apply, a priori. Judging this music objectively, pretty much any listener would call album opener “All My Love” overly indulgent. The chorus is this long, awkward list of all these relatives he has, reading more like a teenager’s journal entry than a professionally recorded rock album.
Ironically, then, track two “Fly High, Swim Deep” has a chorus that not only seems to come and go too fast, but even features an expletive, “fu** off,” which, granted, is hurled off more as a bout of humor from While We’re Young than anything malicious or ill-willed. On this track, too, Johan ushers in some banjo playing, making this music sound even more like Blitzen Trapper, in a good way, than it initially does as his voice certainly at least somewhat resembles Eric Earley’s aw-shucks drawl.
So Johan seems to have weeded out the brittle listeners, early on, and those who are left will be witness to a deliberate but fairly fresh, sonically dynamic acoustic rock album. The operation is not hurt, either, by Johan’s always-emerging sense of humor, as showcased on track four “Better Luck Next Time”: “I didn’t mean to re-offend”/“I can shoot myself in the foot / I would do it again if I could”.
Think: too emotionally genuine for a grocery store, too soft and good-ol’-boy for most bars, but very fitting music for a cafe or a record store in a not-too-violent community. “Anywhere but Here” adds to the album’s eclectic array of styles with some bona fide guitar feedback to kick things off, like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club covering Tom Petty, roughly. The track also adds tragicomic validity to the operation with the repeated, mantra-like declaration of “I wanna be anywhere but here”.
To my ears, anyhow, our boy here isn’t much of a guitar virtuoso, or show-off on any other instrument, for that matter. Such an element might have scooted this LP’s rating up a few points. He’s almost humorous and self-deprecating to a fault, in interviews, which is pleasant, certainly, but also in a way exudes a sense of self-satisfaction, the type of thing that could, to gratifying results, in other instances, be replaced with the impetus to actually WOW us, musically. This album is more refreshing Chai tea on a summer day than it is double espresso cattle-prod, get-you-going-with-whipped-cream-on-top type of operation. Still, as I allude to before, it’s not lacking in eclecticism of instrumentation, to which the harmonica included on “Walking Cane, Running Shoes” will attest, and Johan’s cheeky persona is complemented nicely by great vocal pipes. Thanks to Greywood Records for the press pointer.
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