2023-09-01 19:41:15
Tommy Prine knows that comparing himself to his father John would only make his musical life unnecessarily difficult, and moves on This Far South therefore only on the very edge of any country localizations rather in alt-country-rock or contemporary singer-songwriter folk.
After the two fine (but not finding a place on the album) pre-singles, the sparsely staged, touchingly intimate and really surprisingly successful Ships of the Harboras well as the pleasant routine Turning Stone, the scion of the icon now only follows the reduced approach of sitting on the veranda to a limited extent. The instruments have now grown, the songwriting is routine, the staging is professionally smooth, everything is tolerable and generically arranged – but this can only be understood negatively in the first half of the album.
With the dignified rocking Elohim (quasi a brisk hurry towards Alternative Rock Boygeniusmodular melody, sung wearily and trying hard, insofar as it is problematic as an introduction) as well as the exuberantly friendly party called Mirror in the Kitchen Sink (the ones in the haze from The Smiths– and The Cure-guitars/harmonies with an infectious drive is outstanding fun, and an otherwise half-baked work pointedly shows its strength in indie-Americana), there are also two deliberately placed attention-grabbing boosters that can steer you down the wrong path, which character of the album – also because it leaves more of an impression than much of the rest of the record.
The tendency is namely at the latest in the last third of This Far South already clear that Prine has a similar mood (solely because of some of the well-done lyrics) as in Ships of the Harbor only puts it on a broader basis, albeit sometimes less because of the features of the numbers than because of the atmosphere created – but without achieving the moving, lingering conciseness of his first single.
In Boyhoodwhich exceptionally only guitars and voice suffice to introduce the pleasantly subversive understatement used finish of the record, or the breathy soft-footed pathos of Letter to My Brother anyway, also in the soulful-romantic quasi-Fences– tendons Some Things or the reveling epilogue with piano and strings I Love You, Always These are modest gems, which, apart from their balmating euphony, are quickly forgotten. The really immediately captivating passion is missing – there is a lot canbut no must.
Slightly stronger contours have the evocatively fizzled out, epic wanting to open up, but not creating compelling intensity Cash Carter Hill as well as the calmly swaying, simple semi-catchy tune Crashing Again (which might also have come from David Duchovny), but the thoughtfully plucked folk of the title track is more convincing, even if boredom lurks in the latently banal voice. Finding the right balance of tempo and contemplation is difficult.
In general, Prine doesn’t seem to know exactly where he wants to go on the length of the album (despite a relative coherence due to the formative sound). By the Way takes soulful format radio tendencies to laid-back country flourish and Reach the Sun almost cultivates a swaying mainstream consensus in the melancholic stadium lighter light, nice and nice, but anti-climatic. Especially since it shows here that Prine Jr. often had producer Ruston Kelly (and that’s perhaps the biggest blemish of the record, which was recorded too obligingly!) tailor-made in his comfort zone for a vocal production that was uncomfortably greedy for duplication, whatever once more an annoying plastic taste ironed on contemporary trends This Far South resonates, which in its clean lack of edges undermines the timeless effect of the songwriting.
Corners and scratches would have done the material much better, because even if the impression doesn’t arise during consumption that Tommy Prine would really do something wrong, in the end hardly anything strong in character sticks in the performance or the solid compositions. (That’s why there is no rounding up between the points despite promising approaches – even if the okay average rating feels a little too low and harsh for a debut that shows potential.)
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