Ray LaMontagne - Till the Sun Turns Black
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CD Details
Artist: Ray LaMontagneBrand: Baker Drivetrain
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-08-29
Model: 00828768332825
Music Label: RCA
Product features:
- Audio CD
- Lamontagne, Ray
- ASIN: B000GPIPVU
- Till the Sun Turns Black
- Be Here Now
- Empty
- Barfly
- Three More Days
- Can I Stay
- You Can Bring Me Flowers
- Gone Away From Me
- Lesson Learned
- Truly, Madly, Deeply
- Till The Sun Turns Black
- Within You
Music reviews of Till the Sun Turns Black
Music Review: More inspired Ray LaMontagne songcraft
Rating: 5 Stars
"Can you see the wise man simply living, loving quietly..." so sings Ray LaMontagne on the title track of his latest release Till The Sun Turns Black. It's a lyric, you sense, that is close to the singer-songwriters heart, if not even some sort of personal credo. For Ray LaMontagne and his music are most determinedly not of this ever more frenetic age - and thank goodness for that. It's comforting to know that there are still genuine, unadulterated back-woods musical geniuses out there. LaMontagne's songs seem to naturally embody the same sort of spirit, feel and grain of artists like Otis Redding, Van Morrison, Stephen Stills, and Ray Charles and yet even after just one album, his voice and style are umistakably his own. One listen to Ray LaMontagne and you don't soon forget it. Quite simply, the man moves me, and he also soothes my soul. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this.
It's wonderful to discover then, that after the success of LaMontagne's 2004 debut Trouble, his new songs have lost nothing in the way of their original unpretensious, heart-on-sleeve earthiness. If anything, Till The Sun Turns Black is a touch more somber than Trouble, with a profound sense of melancholy running through even the lighter moments. Songs about hard times, self-doubt, and lost love can generally be relied upon to be compelling, but rarely are they so effortlessly graceful, hauntingly sincere and unutterably beautiful as they are on Till The Sun Turns Black. Aided once more by the brilliant multi-instrumentalist Ethan Johns (it's hard to imagine any other producer for LaMontagne) the two prove beyond all doubt that Trouble was no fluke. It was in fact, only the beginning. Without altering his style drastically, LaMontagne has really broadened his approach here.
The fragile, bewitching Be Here Now opens proceedings, and immediately you are transfixed by waves of cascading piano, guitar, violins, atmospheric touches and LaMontagne himself repeating the title like a man possessed. It's a tremendously moving start, and quite different to anything we've heard from him before - and it gets even better. `Empty' follows, in all of it's broken-down, desolate glory, and it's about as beautiful a Ray LaMontagne song as is possible to imagine. Over stirring, elegant strings the singer sets the scene - " She lifts her skirt up to her knees... walks through the garden rows with her barefeet laughing" before proceeding to knock that pretty image down with a crushing blow - "I've never learned to count my blessings but choose instead to dwell in my disasters". Clearly, the hellhounds on his trail have not been so easy to shake off. Like much of the songwriters work, `Empty' has a truly widescreen, cinematic feel. You could imagine it working brilliantly in a recent film like Brokeback Mountain, or, going back a few years, something like Badlands. More than once during the course of this song, as well as on other tracks like the stirring `Lesson Learned' or the Lennon-esque album closer `Within You' - the thought has struck me - how can one man's voice convey so much feeling? It's not only abundantly present in the soulful timbre of his voice, but also in the way he delivers a line. By turns hesitant, wistful, vulnerable, and impassioned.
It's tempting at this point in my review to go through and dissect each successive track on Till The Sun Turns Black, but I'll spare you all of my gushing praise and leave it for your ears to experience, rather than your eyes. Suffice to say though, whether LaMontagne turns his hand to funky, rump-shaking soul (Three More Days) or simple, unaffected balladry (Can I Stay) or rough-hewn, down & out blues (You Can Bring Me Flowers), the resulting songs, without exception, succeed on all counts. Till The Sun Turns Black is another wonderfully assured step forward for this enigmatic, deeply talented artist.
Highlights: Be Here Now, Empty, Three More Days, Lesson Learned, Till The Sun Turns Black
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Description of Till the Sun Turns Black
11 tracks. Very slight scuff on disc will not affect play. Tri-fold digi-pac has light wear.How do you follow a debut record that achieved out-of-the-blue grandeur on its way to selling a quarter of a million copies? For Maine?s Ray LaMontagne, it?s all about shaking up the formula, evading repetition and delivering the unexpected. Till the Sun Turns Black finds the introspective singer/songwriter complementing his folk-country ways with traces of strings and horns and spooky soulful background voices. Songs like "You Can Bring Me Flowers" and "Three More Days" are the most R&B-influenced, the latter shuffling about ala The Band or Tony Joe White. Despite its brooding lyrics, "Empty" has a rollicking, almost breezy delivery, a perfect balance to either the hushed title track, the unnerving "Be Here Now" or the horn-fortified waltz, "Gone Away From Me." Throughout the 11-song sequence, and especially on the final song "Within You," LaMontagne?s voice remains the record?s most crucial element, as vibrant as it is tattered and as harsh as it is flawless. --Scott Holter
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