An album of songs that descend from the likes of Ray Lamontagne and Josh Rouse, it's nice...
'A Little Hand' is the track most demonstrative of the first point I want to make about this album, that Phil Campbell is a song-writer of the same yoke as Ray LaMontagne, a voice that can be pushed and pulled in the same directions as Ray's, though, as is to be expected, with less power, and a musical style that crosses the earnestness of Mr. L with the summer pop tinges of Josh Rouse. The general feel and look of the album is like a late 80s/early 90s version of LaMontagne, but not bearded.
It is the title track however, 'Joy', that stands out as the best thing about this record, with a riff that's got so much get up and go it really makes you want to get up and go. Coming in after starter 'Maps', which is like a country-pop Hinson song, the voice tuned up an octave or two, Micah becoming Mika... well, not quite, 'Joy' is groovy, with that little circulating riff that's clean like a classic Corrs guitar-sound playing a series of notes that's half Radiohead, half Rednex.
The album carries on as a middle-moody jaunt through a collection of matchbox memories, its songs miniatures of some past that occasionally communicates a nocturnal edge that one can understand, though also sometimes wanders off into James Morrison country. He howls those vocals now and then in a harrowing way that betrays the fact that underneath the slightly removed imagery and gloss of the music is a young but experienced man that can put his soul-led self into a number or two.
Yes, as is exampled in 'Isn't She Beautiful' this chap has got what it takes to sit with a guitar and scratchy voice, bellow out a few verses of wonderful melancholy, and intersperse it with a chorus the likes of which we haven't had since Subtitlo. He's also the ability to write an OTT, almost Scissor Sisters-esque (but not quite, thank goodness), ditty, 'Hey Mama' being the perfect example, like a Sufjan Stevens mess-around that cheeky and delightful in all the right places.
Occasioning a Stephen A. Staples sensibility in some of his songs Phil Campbell has pinned down an affable style that takes the singer-songwriter paradigm and puts it back in the hands of the lyricist with heavily imbued stories to tell, he incorporates a 70s aesthetic of epic minimalism, like in 'Baby Blue' that's half Led Zep ballad, half Elton John fist-clencher and he pulls it all off well.
As a whole album it's not going to get stuck in your CD player for years to come, but when the mood suits you could do a lot worse. At times heart-wrenching this emotional trawl rarely gets stodgy, it maintains good variation between tracks and for a quiet candle-lit album with a bottle of wine open it sure does the trick. Nice.