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Written
by William Elgin, posted by blog admin
Dru
Cutler’s brief two song release Hometown manages to encapsulate reams of
emotion and feeling within a duo of songs many musical artists struggle to achieve
and maintain over the course of a full length album. The Tampa, Florida born
Brooklyn transplant crafted this release as a way to speak to both our roots
and examine the miles traveled since we take our first hesitant steps away from
the cradle of youth. It is both a remembrance of things past fond and slightly
chagrined. As the great American novelist Thomas Wolfe famously titled one of
his novels, Dru Cutler realizes you can’t go home again. The production
highlights an approach equal parts expansive musical textures alongside
visceral guitar lines and Cutler’s charismatic vocals put over the material
with both grit and just the right amount of panache.
The
title song comes first. Cutler’s lyric inventions have a direct, picturesque
quality never lacking in concrete imagery. The clear, confident vocals he
brings to bear aren’t without emotion, but he wisely never overplays his hand
and opts instead to let the text work alongside the music and speak for itself.
The arrangement hinges on the marriage of sparkling piano lines, hard hitting
drums, and well recorded acoustic guitars percolating strongly through the mix.
There’s an understated melodic quality coming through in this performance –
Cutler dispatches the composition in a breezy manner without ever reducing it
to pure pop and the substantive values it retains mark it as something
different from your standard fare. The equally understated vocal harmonies,
particularly on the chorus, are another highlight of the piece.
There’s
a tangibly bluesy feel to “Infinite Moons”, but it also sounds vaguely reminiscent
of something one might hear from David Gilmour on the pre-Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd albums. This track, surprisingly, bears a more elegiac quality than
the release’s title track and there’s a definite Beatles-eque touch to the
performance Cutler never over-exaggerates. Harmony vocals certainly play much
more of a key role here, but it uses electric guitars in an equally compelling
fashion. The electric work comes in a largely orchestral manner – there are no
grand instrumental breaks where the instrument steps to the fore and takes over
– but the playing definitely makes itself felt in a variety of melodic and
dissonant ways. It is quite a contrast to the aforementioned title cut, but the
contrast is never jarring. Instead, the pairing sounds like two sides of the
same thematic coin Cutler never fails to deliver with immense style and full
command of fundamentals. Dru Cutler’s
Hometown is a winning effort capable of getting under a listener’s skin without
exerting undue effort thanks to the artistry of its guiding artistic force.
Grade:
A+
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