Trevor Owen has a skill that seems to be common currency amongst all the great songwriters—the ability to take a simple song structure and turn it into something captivating. Great songs, the ones that last and come to be known as classics, are rarely the most ornate and complex ones. Those might tick a few boxes amongst niche audiences. Still, if you think of the songs of, say, Paul Simon, James Taylor and more recent troubadours such as David Gray or Damien Rice, they have simple structures at their heart. They are then draped and dressed in just enough sonic embellishment, but not so much that it hides the simple beauty of what the song is built on.
I say all of this because his latest album, And The Moon Rising, is a collection of just such a set of songs. Whether it is the elegance of the opening, titular salvo, the more jazz-infused Horizontal, the soothing soul inflexions of The More, The More or the gentle balladry of Sweet Bitter, these are songs which seem to be already slipping from the regular musical world into that rarefied place where the classic songs live.
Big words? Yes. An over-statement? I don’t think so. Give it a spin, and tell me I’m wrong. I dare you…
https://trevorowenmusic.com
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