Courtesy of Michael Pickett, from the North Columbia Monthly:
Aaron Gabriel Quietly Crashes the Party
With pristine layers of stringed instruments and vocals that clock in somewhere between Evan Lowenstein, Paul Simon and the incandescent charm of John Denver, Aaron Gabriel's 'Uninvited Guest' blends beautiful songwriting and simple delivery in the space of eleven stately songs.
It's a bold move, because as 'easy' as it sounds to create a simple, mostly-acoustic record, it can be a monumental task to fill up a space with confidence and understatement over sequencers and bombast. Letting melodies do their job and then getting just the right combinations of instruments to speak and not clutter is the real trick.
Take tracks like 'Only You Alone' or album opener 'Lovesick Blues' (featuring Molly Kate Andrews) with strong, heartfelt melodies breathing easily over the top of shimmering strings. It's a superb formula and requires just the right touch. Possibly the best of the bunch, however, is the bright, harmony-laden 'The Late Molly Kate,' with its ringing vocal storytelling over the barest of instrumentation...absolutely masterful.
In actual fact, 'Uninvited Guest' is so well-paced and produced that you never get the sense that the album is 'stripped-down.' It would almost be a shame to hear these songs arranged for anything bigger than what occurs here. Aaron's voice is the perfect vehicle for these stories, backed with just the right accompaniment and harmony. Nothing lays this out better than album ender 'Senorita in the Sunshine,' a closer that rises and falls with strong-and-simple guitar punctuated with angelic harmonies in a way that never feels forced or over-done.
Not bad, huh? I was pretty pleased with that, I must say.
Here's a link to a rather nice quasi-review/interview, courtesy of Sophia Aldous and the Statesman Examiner:
Also, I thought it might be a good idea to include a link to my Facebook page, seeing as how this blog does seem to get some attention. I even had a visitor from Germany! Go figure.
Cheers,
Aaron
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