Tuesday, 3 November 2015

Kevin Brown - Book Of Skies


Rating: 3/5

Review:
OK, but nothing special



I hadn't heard of Kevin Brown before but was persuaded to try this album by a rave review by Terry Roland on No Depression which said that Book Of Skies was "a strong contender for one of the best releases of Americana music by a singer-songwriter this year."  I'm afraid that for me it certainly isn't.

This is an album of nice, tastefully arranged songs: acoustic guitar, gentle fiddle, subtle banjo, a bit of pedal steel…you get the picture.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of it, but it's just rather ordinary.  The material is OK, with the odd decent line; High Horse, for example, deals with the damage done by entrenched political attitudes.  It's not bad, but it lacks much in the way of real bite either lyrically or musically, and I felt the same pretty well throughout the album.  At a time when there's so much decent Americana around, this certainly didn’t stand out from the crowd for me. 

In a year which has seen the release of really fine work by people like Jason Isbell, Emily Barker, Patty Griffin, Ana Egge and plenty of others, I'm afraid this is nowhere near contending for best Americana album.  I think it's OK but nothing more, and I can only give it a very lukewarm recommendation.

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