Post by Deleted on May 11, 2016 14:20:40 GMT -5
'Voice' winner Sawyer Fredericks keeps things mainly downbeat on debut album
By Amy Biancolli Updated 3:03 pm, Wednesday, May 11, 2016
By Amy Biancolli Updated 3:03 pm, Wednesday, May 11, 2016
When Fultonville's Sawyer Fredericks won season eight of "The Voice" at age 16 last spring, he was the youngest victor in the show's history. He already had a full album of original songs under his belt: "Out My Window," released in 2013. And he already had the pipes, the poise and the rough-hewn air of sadness befitting a folk singer twice his age. Maybe three.
So here he is with "A Good Storm," his first full album of original tunes since "The Voice," and guess what: His music is still rough, still sad. It still bears the old-soul sensibility and incongruously dark subject matter that marked his days on the upstate coffeehouse circuit. Songs about suicide, disillusionment, downward-spiraling love affairs — all there, all sung with his quicksilver vibrato and unflagging, unlikely sincerity. The kid has no business knowing anything about the topics he addresses in his lyrics, and he has no business sounding so huskily authentic when he sings about them.
Much of "A Good Storm" will be familiar to hard-core Sawyerphiles already familiar with early videos of an even-younger Fredericks singing even more incongruously of death and heartbreak. Updated for the album with tweaks from multiple co-writers, Fredericks' originals are rendered here with shiny studio production values that veer, occasionally, into pop and country but don't buff the edges off his voice.
So here he is with "A Good Storm," his first full album of original tunes since "The Voice," and guess what: His music is still rough, still sad. It still bears the old-soul sensibility and incongruously dark subject matter that marked his days on the upstate coffeehouse circuit. Songs about suicide, disillusionment, downward-spiraling love affairs — all there, all sung with his quicksilver vibrato and unflagging, unlikely sincerity. The kid has no business knowing anything about the topics he addresses in his lyrics, and he has no business sounding so huskily authentic when he sings about them.
Much of "A Good Storm" will be familiar to hard-core Sawyerphiles already familiar with early videos of an even-younger Fredericks singing even more incongruously of death and heartbreak. Updated for the album with tweaks from multiple co-writers, Fredericks' originals are rendered here with shiny studio production values that veer, occasionally, into pop and country but don't buff the edges off his voice.
The opening track, the irresistibly bouncy "Take It All," is as upbeat and frothy (with clapping, no less) as anything he's done or is likely to, ever. The tune is one of four on the album that first arrived on an EP last November, the other three a mix of midtempo twanginess ("Stranger," with Mia Z) and introspective relationship breakdowns ("Still Here," "Lovers Still Alone").
Of the remaining seven songs, two are takes on the ruminative, bluesy "4 Pockets," one of them mixed with sly funk touches by Fredericks' old "Voice" coach, Pharrell Williams. Two more are the wistful and sweeping "Not Coming Home" and the spare, melancholic title track, an aching ballad of resignation sung from the POV of a man so profoundly alone that he yearns for company no longer. "I don't need to be loved, or love someone / The empty space in my heart might never fill / What do I care if I die alone?"
By comparison, "This Fire" is the most hopeful song on the album: a midtempo ballad in 3/4 time that opens with cello and burns with the flush of early love. "Shots Fired" is the least, a battle-themed breakup tune that could have left out the snare drum and still made its point.
"What I've Done" is the best: a seven-minute, slowly building, shattering confession from a cold-hearted lover who drives his woman to the ledge of suicide and waits while the sirens come. (He sang it at the Palace last May, warning the crowd: "Most of my songs are very depressing.") Even from the mouth of an older, wiser, more seasoned troubadour, the song would be a shocker. But a 17-year-old sings this. And most shocking of all? You'll believe him.
Of the remaining seven songs, two are takes on the ruminative, bluesy "4 Pockets," one of them mixed with sly funk touches by Fredericks' old "Voice" coach, Pharrell Williams. Two more are the wistful and sweeping "Not Coming Home" and the spare, melancholic title track, an aching ballad of resignation sung from the POV of a man so profoundly alone that he yearns for company no longer. "I don't need to be loved, or love someone / The empty space in my heart might never fill / What do I care if I die alone?"
By comparison, "This Fire" is the most hopeful song on the album: a midtempo ballad in 3/4 time that opens with cello and burns with the flush of early love. "Shots Fired" is the least, a battle-themed breakup tune that could have left out the snare drum and still made its point.
"What I've Done" is the best: a seven-minute, slowly building, shattering confession from a cold-hearted lover who drives his woman to the ledge of suicide and waits while the sirens come. (He sang it at the Palace last May, warning the crowd: "Most of my songs are very depressing.") Even from the mouth of an older, wiser, more seasoned troubadour, the song would be a shocker. But a 17-year-old sings this. And most shocking of all? You'll believe him.