Singer-songwriter Gus Black released his fifth full length album, "Today Is not The Day," this past summer on Cheap Lullaby. The twelve track collection takes you through the aches of life: loneliness, homesickness, and betrayal. The album is introduced by the first track "Today Is Not The Day" in which Black sets the mood of low spirits through his lyrics, "let's go out tonight with drunken ambition, the one I want just left the country".
The next eleven songs on the album continue with the theme of despair and increasing helplessness, exemplified in tracks like "I'm F#@Ked" and "Variations On A Theme Called Honesty". It is only in the last two songs ("Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurray Hurray" and "On For The Arrow") that the mood seems to begin to turn in another direction.
Virtually every track is a new development in overcoming the despondency he is experiencing. The song structures consist of mellow acoustics that rest beneath a top layer of hypnotizing vocals. Some tracks recruit background vocals that create an echo effect; this addition brings a feeling of comfort to the songs by creating a feel of multiple people sharing the same experience.
The closing track to the record "On For The Arrow" is my favorite as it is instrumentally consistent with the rest of the album, but lyrically reflects the personal growth that has occurred over the record: "so come out tonight, lets go dancin', shoot out the lights, the whole distance, and throw our souls from tall buildings, from broken roads, just like kids". This is much different than the first song's dejected attitude, and it shows the emergence of a belief in promise. Black's musical style on this album is similar to that of Leonard Cohen or Brian Eno. It reminds me a lot of Raine Madia's The Hunter's Lullaby.
Video: Here is the video for Gus Black's track "Today Is Not The Day"
Mp3: Gus Black
- Love Is A Stranger
- On For The Arrow
Links: Check out his website here for more information, tour dates, and to purchase his CD.
If you like these artists, you might want to check out Gus Black:
- Leonard Cohen
- Brian Eno
- Raine Maida
- Jeff Buckley
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