A delightful album that crosses over its genres effortlessly but manages to keep the listener constantly engaged. At times you swear you are listening to a long lost Eagles track or maybe James Taylor at his best but his music is never derivative and whether he is in country-rock vein or straight out Americana his voice chimes through and a fine set of songs is revealed with subjects from lost love to the trials of a working artist.
The musicians that help him out here are picked from the cream of New York and Toronto and the production by Andy Magoffin definitely helps the music come through clearly and with minimal additions.
I love the soft ballad ‘Speak to Me’ with its harmonica opening as he talks about a couple drifting apart and he visits the emotive and heartfelt again on ‘I Want You To Be Happy’.
He has a sense of humour as well as he shows on ‘Drunken Yoga’ but tinged with some pathos as he wishes for the days before kids and the school run but celebrates the weekends when he and his wife get drunk and then do yoga.
‘Princess Katie’ has the feel of a 1920’s university song with surprising vocal treatment and the title track definitely throws back to the Police circa 1982 and sets the listener up for the Simon & Garfunkel–esque ‘Smile, You’re Alive’ which just gets better with every listen and leaves the listener with a proto-tear in their eyes.
All told this is a joy that rewards the listener the more they work at it and left the music in rather than just listening.
