I’m not sure how he does it, but E.G. Holmes seems to revel in the art of gathering small sonic details, different tones, restrained textures, space and ambience and bringing them all together to create his songs. Last year’s single Warm was fashioned similarly through weight or impact, volume or velocity, but through gently bringing together chiming, and indeed charming, musical strands, and so it is here.
Pieces That Lay Broken doesn’t make its present felt through anything as course or unimaginative as puch or power. Instead, it beguiles the listener with fine detail and finessed sounds – a gentle groove built on understated drums, shimmering guitars that gradually build to include more robust but never imposing drives, pulsing, punctuating yet sparse bass lines and that wonderfully relaxed, warm yet slightly world-weary vocal of his.
Too many artists throw everything they can think of at the musical space they are given to work in. The real charm of E.G. Holmes’ music in general, and this song in particular, is the fact that he is merely harnessing and cocooning the sound of the world around us rather than adding to it. Space! It may be the final frontier when it comes to music. Space lets the light in; it allows all manner of atmospheres to be conjured up, pool and percolate in the gaps between one fading vocal line and the next, after the lingering of a note and the ushering in the next. It is what makes songs, at least songs like this, more than the sum of their parts.
And when he does go for the big lift, when he breaks out the guitar and stands in the spotlight, his solo is short, sharp, shockingly, great, restrained, and to the point. Too many players build in solo parts that have nothing to do with the song they feature in as if they have welded two ideas together that have no truck existing side by side. Here, the solo seems to emerge out of the melody, has its day in the sun and then threads its way back through the song as it heads towards its final destination.
E.G. Holmes is a deft writer and a delicate deliverer of songs. But we knew that already, didn’t we?
For more information go to Bongo Boy Records
I am extremely honored for you review, Thank you.