Risky
There is a dour and dirge mood to this album, and the strained vocal does at times sound like Ryan Adams at his melodramatic best/worst [choose your alliance]. The pedal steel and sweeping harmonies add a broader background canvas upon which to paint these downbeat narratives of loneliness, pain and loss, and that, musically, retrieves them from the absolute self-indulgence some might singularly hear and wish to avoid. As LeBlanc is indeed at the beginning of a musical journey aged 22, I think we can walk with him through this trudge in that learning curve. After all, if you can’t be propelled by your muse – whatever its emotive catalyst – there seems little point in looking for integrity in songwriting, and I prefer such selfishness over precedence given to the comfortable and/or slick [and I do accept I have offered significant poles to make a point!]. But I would agree that this is not an album to brighten a listener’s mood; nor is it one to risk if already at the edge of a fragile precipice.
There are safe dalliances, aurally speaking, as with Chesapeake Lane where LeBlanc’s vocal tone is full and captivating. This is followed by a riskier companion, track seven The Ties That Bind, but again the vocal resonance is genuinely enchanting – I think these are beautiful songs. Eighth Comfort Me wraps the echoing voice within an upbeat – relatively speaking – Country beat [and other ‘echoes’ of The Monkees?]: a trio of sonic safety within the darker surrounds! It is perhaps a shame that the crackle of a radio search leading to the singing of final song Lonesome Waltz didn’t signal a more caustic end, for example, of good ol’ rock’n’roll anger to dispel or at least deal momentarily with despair, as this track does dance out on a downer.
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