Reviews
Artist:Sherman Downey Album: New Beautiful
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.shermandowney.ca
Released in Canada last year and now getting a wider distribution, the Newfoundland singer-songwriter's album is a welcome bright, catchy and upbeat affair about, essentially, finding contentment in life with what you have and those who find themselves longing for home after they couldn't wait to leave it.
Reminiscent of Darlingside, It opens with the sparkling fingerpicked 'Front Porch' ("In the mornin' she is dancin' in the kitchen to the music on the radio/With the windows open and the curtains wide") on which he's contemplating getting out of town ("Everyday it's the same old thing; there's nothin' much happenin'/Soon I'm gonna pack my suitcase and I'm gonna to hit the road"), but never seems to get round to it.
The dreamy, strings-coloured midtempo 'The Sun In Your Eyes' has a similar theme ("Starin' at the floor, seein' faces in the wood/The kids are screamin' bloody murder and you know you probably should/Step outside and settle things back down/Before someone pokes an eye out and it gets all over town/How many pieces take their place, linin' up for their escape?") as, indeed, does the percussive chug and sunny 'Shiftwork', which (like much here) had me thinking of Gilbert O'Sullivan and addresses the daily grind mundanity ("Every day I go to work/I wake up early I drink some coffee/I read the news and I press my shirt/Every couple of weeks/I drive the highway along the coastline just to get out of the stink") and, again thoughts of getting away from it ("And I've been savin' my money - I've been tuckin' it all away…And maybe when I have enough I'll go").
'Finger Guns', with its circling acoustic notes, offers a playful bedroom scenario ("You stand in the mirror and you size yourself up/You pull out your finger guns and try to look tough/Then you point 'em at me and you focus your eye/So I throw up my hands to surrender my life/You move from the dresser to the edge of the bed/You pull your thumb trigger - I pretend that I'm dead") and, as such, leads nearly into the uptempo chugging keys and drums-driven 'Romancer' and its lonely hope of finding a soulmate ("You make believe that you move like a dancer/You never see yourself as much of a romancer/In the mirror at the bar you can catch a roaming eye/It's looking for a love - just oversimplified").
Shifting musical tone to an almost madrigal-like guitar figure with Downey's falsetto soaring to almost yodel proportions on the refrain, the brass-embellished 'Long Goodbye' returns to trying to find distractions ("You look for somethin' for your hands to do/A piece of paper for a plan or two/Paint a picture with a sky as blue as you feel/When you think about the day ahead/And the things you'd like to do instead"), here after the end of a relationship, that, on a decidedly parochial note, namechecks The Possum, a country radio station based out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Another circling melody around acoustic guitar with brass and perhaps hints of early Jim Webb 'To Do List' starts out as just that, again about finding looking to get through the day and focusing on whatever it is, quite possibly the only song to have a musical *shrug* written into the lyrics. It indulges in a witty peace/piece of mind wordplay, and, clearly pleased with that, the following track is actually titled 'Piece Of Mind', about a relationship being tested by the distance between the lonely lovers separated over the miles ("I might just like to get a call from you? Is it too much to ask? 'Cause if it is, let me know and I'll pack up all my stuff and leave tomorrow"), their story, now identified as Mary and Henry, seeming to be extended into 'Deep In The Dark of the Jubilee Seam', he away working in a coal mine, tragedy hovering with "A rumble in the mountain, a canary in the dirt and a hundred men and Henry knew that feelin's had been hurt".
It ends on a brief note of wistful childhood reminiscence ("running like wolves every day out in the woods kicking up pine to leave it behind when we could") with the strings-adorned, keyboards-led sway of 'Ordinary Kid', closing on a warm brass band coda that feels like the sun going down at the end of the day. An album put together from everyday events and emotions, seen through eyes awakened to the sometimes bittersweet beauty of the world around, disappointments cut through with hope, this is a lovely reminder of the upside of having to stay at home.
Mike Davies
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