Every once in awhile you try out an album and it becomes a happy accident. These albums become special to you because you just took a chance and found something special. I was hoping for this when I picked this from the promo pile. I had high hopes as this was compared to Ryan Adams primarily. While this comparison fits in a vague way, I didn't get the next Ryan Adams either. What I got was something nice but nothing special. Okay, that seems rough let me explain.
Nathan Xander is one of the many new signings to Deep Elm. In recent years the label has taken a backseat relying more on digital distribution but this is a release that has been fully packaged and set up for physical consumption. The packaging is a nice cardboard digipack with a nice calm innocuous design. It actually looks like someone's grandmother gave them a sweater she had knit. This doesn't include any lyrics and just enough liners to know who did what. Sadly this gives you the perfect vibe for the music itself.
Sadly, the part that truly drags this album down is the sequencing. While most of the songs are calm and quiet there are two rockers in the bunch. They almost act to wake up the listener as they sit back to back right in the midway point of the album. This in effect makes everything else sound that much slower. So while slow songs aren't bad, especially in folk music, Xander does very little to make the songs stand alone.
Everything about this release is just pleasant not bad, not great just pleasant. The songs all revolve around Xander's calm acoustic strumming and his voice. His voice is a nice thing as it sounds much like a young Ryan Adams without the country twang. Generally any comparisons end there. Each song follows a calm folksy ideal. The strumming only gets somewhat fast on a couple songs. The drumming skitters but never gets rocking and the harmonica acts more like a lead instrument than the guitars do. On the other hand Xander creates a somewhat cohesive album of calm folk songs. This album could act as a great stepping stone as you do hear flashes of brilliance here and there but Xander doesn't seem to be interested in taking advantage of these moment instead allowing them to happen then leave into the ether. This only makes room for the simplicity of the songs to take over and allow no true differentiating factors. Hopefully Nathan can build upon these moments and make a truly wonderful folk album next time.
