After the country-tinged drive of Comes A Moment, Jonathan Cavier returns with something more straightforward pop and as it wafts past my senses I have finally managed to put my finger on the real power of his music. Yes, he writes great songs, they are accessible, infectious even, they have mass commercial appeal without resorting to gimmickry or studio tricks but the over-riding vibe I get from his music is that it all seems so…well, effortless.
The vocals rise and fall, emphasising the message or creating subdued contrasts, guitars chime delicately through out and strings wash through the spaces between, all the while the dynamics shift gears to create a wonderful flow without changing the speed of the beat. It is the gentle build of textures and musical layers that create the changing musical colour here rather than resorting to changes in velocity or volume.
And again Cavier lays down a pop template that many could learn from, one that walks the line between musical artistry and mainstream success. And the best part about it is that he manages to do all of this without seeming to break into a sweat.
[…] previous releases such as When You Come Around and Comes a Moment have shown Cavier to be the master of accessible, expertly wrought, commercially […]