Consistently themed, with a strong cohesive feel throughout, this traditional, derivative soft rock collection is obviously greatly inspired by the likes of mostly Tom Petty, then Bob Dylan and George Harrison, circa 1970′s. Soft acoustic pick-n-strum and cool electric slide guitars, a wavy, tickled tenacious B-3 organ and sometimes punchy low sax harmony accents, all set into a more or less standard but very fine rhythm section make the solid, fine and currently stylistically hip musical bed.
No one will accuse Mr. Lamb of an overly projected lead vocal. Not naturally loud or assertively strong, his sensitive, singer-songwriter style most often softly serenades, semi-strenuously pushing to pump it up where called for, sometimes inconsistently within the course of a given piece (more compression; more volume?). The title track, “disengage,” may showcase his breathy style to optimal advantage, with plenty of surrounding air in which to cleanly and clearly best hear his gentle pipes and poignantly poetic words. The intent and source place from which is born this personal expression feels to offer lots of loads of heart from an often tortured soul.
One way of categorizing songwriting styles is into these two groups: lyrics bend to melody, or melody bends to lyric. We have here a somewhat overt leaning to the latter. These songs emphasize the words, and not infrequently, the words are maintained at the slight expense of a graceful finesse blend, stuffing and stretching note flow as needed.
Given the basic songwriting, the production vision on this record is top-notch. The artist’s vision was accurately perceived, developed, encouraged and captured to best advantage.
Let’s take a brief word ride through each track:
- Oh gimme that good 70′s Petty rock. free (not free-fallin’) could use more intro development—not too much, say just add 10-ish seconds of something more to warm up at the very start of it all. Nothing especially original here, but a respectably decent drifty-dreamy sing-a-long. Exceptional Pagey-esque guitar work on the outro.
- Nice chord changes, dynamics, rhythm and slide guitars. The i would lyric nails it expressing the universal sentiment, “If I could… I would…” This deeply felt gentle longing softly shines clearly throughout.
- Shane’s melancholically beautiful dream indeed does woo us to disengage in a freeing release kind of way, like “ahhh well – life goes on, my darlin’.” A plaintive spirit well-expressed in both composition and performance, the CD is aptly titled by this track.
- A solid Pettyesque rocker that pushes us along with hope toward someday getting ‘to the point.’ Nothing particularly standout here, but like everything else in this release, well-performed and production-optimized.
- Intro-wise, do not be deceived: This is not All Along the Watchtower. Again, this tune, to get you through, will not knock your socks off, yet it fits in fine, playing very well with all of its neighbors.
- Lovely add-9, hip tremolo, cool chord intro temptingly wafts and sucks us right in, and continues throughout much of on my mind, along with equally lovely slide guitar. Sometimes the verse vocal tends to get a bit buried behind the lush instrumental. Nice staccato backup instrumental touch on the last chorus.
- Buoyant and lilting, this is unquestionably the most uplifting and positive work on the album. Simply resting in being with someone you feel completely comfortable with has a lot going for it, and a while captures its expression nicely.
- dreams deeply chirps open with some B-3 sass, then softly rocks on in a fairly predictable way. This is the most country-rock gee-tar twang piece here, using yet again what is likely the most popularly implemented chord progression of the last 15-years. Have you followed your dreams?
- Dylan vocals lead the Lay-Lady-Lay 50′s vibe of take away. Heavy bass sax harmonies make an interestingly classic and unique punctuation in the chorus. Possibly somewhat over-the-top sing-song melody in spots.
- Rockabilly groove carries the change in me, again strongly 50′s influenced. A shorty at just over 2-minutes, this could appear on a Steve Earle album if it were taken more into the edgy, gritty territory that is Earle’s forte.
- Dreaming again as we dream tonight. Vocally and melodically, this has sort of a kinder, gentler Smashing Pumpkins feel. Soft swaying in waltz time, heavy strings pump in to lush it up toward the end of 6-minutes plus, though as is most often the case, Mr. B-3 has the final word.
- This finale piece, until you, brings back strong Mr. Petty song-stylin’, especially from a syncopation perspective, just less rockin’. Lyrically, there is much beneficial self-analytic therapy here. Always, always let forgiveness rule.
Reviewed By Mike Ososki
