Artist: Palamara
Album: A Voice in the Wilderness
Label: Self-released
Release Date: 9.15.2018
Singer/songwriter Palamara has produced an uneven album, but the upside is that his good songs are great. Palamara wasted no time making that bumpy ride clear on the first track, one of two instrumentals on the album.
Opener “Treatise” starts out slow, dreamy and comforting, with a lovely repetitive acoustic guitar hook and some light percussion, then comes close to a halt with a new-age-y electric riff and cricket-like pops for a full minute, then returns to the original format. Me: hate the bridge, love the song.
The uptempo “Everybody Wants to Dance” charmingly goes against the [insane] pop idea that everyone is perfect and should do their own thing, with lines like “If I wanted to dance, I probably could, but that don’t mean I probably should,” and “I wanna do the slip, but she wants to grind; If the good times are rolling, well, I don’t really mind–there’s more than one way to find a groove.”
Lovely, wistful and heartbreakingly honest, “Sorrow for Sorrow,” perfectly showcases both Palamara’s gift for knife-edge lyrics and his prodigious skill with the music. Like Leonard Cohen, Palamara’s melodies constantly offer new twists without seeming forced or contrived, and every new listen sounds exactly like that—a new listen.
The final song, “Keep Making That Joyful Noise” touches on what keeps this guy going—music, whether joyful or not. Let’s hope he takes his own advice.
—Suzanne Cadgène
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