Interlude: Brett Dennen's "Loverboy" (Review)

Today I downloaded Brett Dennen's new album, Loverboy. It's probably one of the first times I've ever bought an album so soon after it came out. I'll admit, I don't tend to keep very current with music news. There's a number of artists, Dennen included, who I keep an eye out for, but it's often a month or more before I'll see a new release is out. But this time around, Brett did something that got me engaged in the process leading up to the release. I follow his page on Facebook, and a while back, he posted a link to a video clip, which I clicked on out of curiosity. It was a short snippet from the recording sessions for Loverboy. Ever since I started putting my home studio together, I've been especially fascinated by film clips from studio sessions. Then he posted another one. As easy as that, I was hooked into the process. So here we go. This will be my third listening of the album, so these will be fairly fresh impressions of the songs, not studied critiques!

From the very first notes of Surprise, Surprise, you can tell this going to be his most upbeat and band-oriented album yet. Right along-side the strummed acoustic there's a synth sound, and soon more organs join in. It's a very soulful groove, the band is crisp and tight. And then, there's Dennen's voice. There's a real lack of self-consciousness about his singing, it's very uninhibited and soulful. The melody really sits nicely in the gestalt of this song.

Dark clouds gather in the afternoon

Come together just to cry

Seagulls struggling against the wind

Falling out of the sky

This definitely the most rocking Brett Dennen album to date. There's groove-soul feel to a lot of it; makes me think of sort of a modern version of a Van Morrison album. There's some lovely orchestration in Frozen In Slow Motion, a very smooth track. Which leads into Sydney (I'll Come Running), which was one of the first singles to be previewed before the album release. I can see why. It's hopping. And once again, great lyrics.

Only Rain evokes an almost old-school R&B feel. Can't Stop Thinking has more than a little Reggae going on, while still being uniquely Brett Dennen. On Must Be Losing My Mind, I am ever more sure that Dennen must listen to African music. I have felt strongly that this is the case for quite awhile. I first noticed it in the guitar line for Blessed, so I went back and listened more closely to his other songs. It's not always so obvious, but it's definitely there in a lot of his guitar playing.

The Production also sounds great to me. In the album credits, Michael Brauer is credited as the mixing engineer. He's mixed everyone from Coldplay to Aretha Franklin.

It's just my opinion, but Brett Dennen is one of the best lyricists out there. Among those I admire, I'd put him up there with Anais Mitchell, Gary Jules, and Sufjan Stevens. They are all very unique writers, but they share a way of being personal, universal, and poetic all at once. By now, you might be thinking this is a Brett Dennen love-fest. The fact is, I am drawn to songwriters and singers whose music has a positive message and a happy vibe. It's what I was trying to do all those years in Baaba Seth. It's what I'm still doing. I firmly believe you can tell people what's wrong in the world, but in a way that encourages positivity and hopefulness. There's enough people out there telling us how fucked up everything is and how screwed everyone is; I much prefer to see the world through a lens of hopefulness and celebration.

Overall, a really great release. I would recommend it to anyone. This album will surely earn him many new fans, and I hope they all take the time to delve into his earlier albums as well.