New Music

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This article was published 04/11/2021 (1669 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POP / ROCK

Ed Sheeran: =

(Atlantic Records)

Huge things have happened to Ed Sheeran since his last solo album — marriage, loss, fatherhood. They’re all on the new collection = (Equals), an album that sweetly sounds like a man who now has all he needs.

“I have grown up/I am a father now/Everything has changed/But I am still the same somehow,” Sheeran sings on the revealing opening song, Tides. Don’t believe it: He has changed.

Gone is the heartbreak and bitterness that gave a sly edge to songs on previous albums. Gone is much of the insecurity that made Sheeran so relatable. That guy you imagined down at the pub with his mates enjoying a pint and a packet of crisps is now home, shutting out the world.

The bulk of Equals are love songs to his wife, Cherry Seaborn, like the unabashedly romantic First Times, when he sings: “The greatest thing that I have achieved/Is four little words, down on one knee.”

The album is almost like a scrapbook looking back at their private moments: sleeping on the beach, red wine shared in Brooklyn, the time the car stalled in the snow. For Sheeran, his business — even playing in front of 80,000 people — doesn’t have the same thrill.

Sheeran veers into sappy with The Joker and the Queen, Overpass Graffiti and Love in Slow Motion, destined for adult contemporary charts. If you liked his previous hit Perfect, this is more of the same.

Their child — daughter Lyra, born in August 2020 — inspired the lullaby Sandman, while Visiting Hours mourns a friend’s passing.

Most of the 14 tracks of the album were co-written with regular collaborator Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol and McDaid co-produced with U.K. pop producer FRED. There are no big-name collaborations or features, unusual these days.

The first singles — the bubbly Shivers with hand-claps and the silky club tune Bad Habit — hint at a more danceable Sheeran and indeed there are more bangers here: The murky 2step, showing off his vocal dexterity, and Stop the Rain which flirts with an environmental message.

But Equals doesn’t stray far from home and the woman he adores.So let’s tiptoe away and leave him to his domestic bliss. ★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: First Times, Bad Habit

— Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press

 

TOUCHING: Littleworlds

(Head in the Sand Records)

In the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 lockdowns took effect everywhere, Winnipeg musician/producer/festival organizer Michael Falk made effective use of his suddenly free time. He decided to properly record and finish several of the songs he’d written in the years since the untimely demise of Les Jupes (which broke up just as the group’s second album, Some Kind of Family, was released in 2015).

Beginning that May, he released a song and video a week for 10 successive weeks and ultimately compiled the music as Isolation Blues, the first album from his new musical project, Touching.

Inspired by that process, Falk kept going and Littleworlds is the result — 10 songs that, at first blush, seem to match the sombre, reflective mood of the past year-and-a-half.

Give this collection a few listens, though, and the music’s internal dynamism reveals itself. Working with co-producer/bassist Alasdair Dunlop and drummer Sandy Fernandez, Falk handles vocal, guitar and keyboard/piano duties himself, concocting a blend of earnest lyricism with early ’80s synth pop and rock (everything from OMD to shades of Images in Vogue) that also incorporates burbling trip-hop elements and crashing, reverb-laden guitars.

Those familiar with Les Jupes will note that Falk’s impressive baritone voice is deliberately dialled back, an approach that lets the songs breathe and allows his stories of mid-life doubts and battles to shine through.

All I Need, about the last day of a manufacturing plant, paints a poignant, John Samson-esque picture of existential struggle, while Caught in the Middle is a classic tale of unattainable love and Tony Called the Muscle is an uptempo study of how the mighty fall that will likely sound huge when played live. Here’s hoping… ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Tony Called the Muscle, All I Need

— John Kendle

 

ROOTS / COUNTRY

Sean Rowe: The Darkness Dressed in Colored Lights

(Fluff & Gravy Records)

Singer-songwriter Sean Rowe’s big voice is part of the reason his new album has heft, but it’s not the only one.

His resonant baritone is matched on The Darkness Dressed in Colored Lights with powerful, well-made songs that range from somber to soaring. Taken together, the album builds on the promise of earlier work, including To Leave Something Behind, a song that got Rowe noticed when it was featured in Ben Affleck’s 2016 film, The Accountant.

The new album opens with What Are We Now a mellow but muscular number that Rowe (rhymes with “how”) acknowledges was influenced by the pulsating urgency of Radiohead’s landmark album In Rainbows, though it doesn’t sound like a knockoff.

After that come two of the album’s best cuts, To Make It Real, which starts off gently but rises to a plaintive plateau, and Little Death, which features a tumble-down, piano-based chorus that gives it a celebratory feel reminiscent of early Bruce Springsteen. With lyrics that could pass for a New Year’s resolution about making a new start, the song ends with a flourish of horns that doesn’t undermine the Springsteen comparison.

On I Won’t Run, a moving love song with a deliberate country feel, Rowe added background vocals by guitarist Courtney Hartman after hearing her hum along in the control room. That was not a mistake.

Still, the album takes flight on the strength of Rowe’s voice. Almost a growl at times, it falls somewhere between George Ezra and Richard Thompson, with maybe a hint of Tom Waits.

Ultimately, though, Rowe doesn’t sound like anybody else — and that’s what cinches this as a dynamic new album, and Rowe as an artist on the rise. ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: I Won’t Run, To Make it Real

— Scott Stroud, The Associated Press

 

JAZZ

Sylvie Courvoisier/Mary Halvorson:Searching for the Disappeared Hour

(Pyroclastic Records)

One result of the pandemic has been a large number of solo and duet jazz albums — one of the few ways to record under strict protocols. Many of these have been wonderful, and this album is an example. Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are solidly entrenched in the New York avant-garde scene. Together they are a formidable pair.

The album explores, in often tangential directions, the concept of time, specifically the hour of music written and performed inside the warped reality of the pandemic. The “disappeared hour” is one everyone has experienced in the last 18 months.

There are both fully improvised and written tracks here, with some constantly surprising tunes that move through kaleidoscopic moments. The opening track, Golden Proportion, is a pastiche of brief riffs that dance around the theme and even slip in a few notes from the Moonlight Sonata. That sense of fun shows up throughout the album, notwithstanding several tracks Halvorson wrote during the debate regarding Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that would never be considered funny. Lulu’s Second Theorem, on the other hand, takes the listener down a philosophical path (although Lulu is in fact Courvoisier’s cat).

As they deliver anything but straight-ahead music, the synchronicity between these two move what is unapologetic experimental music into the realm of sheer musical beauty. They take turns heading to the musical edge, while the other holds the foundation. The result is always thoughtful, surprisingly accessible and perhaps unexpectedly melodic. The closest thing to a title track, Courvoisier’s The Disappearing Hour, outlines the often-confused reality we have all faced for the last 18 months. Gates & Passes is a quiet and gentle ballad that follows a graceful movement to a peaceful conclusion.

This is music to attract many who are not overly familiar with modern avant-garde jazz. They will not be disappointed. ★★★★1/2

STREAM THESE: Moonbow, Gates & Passes

— Keith Black