I never fail to be astonished when I run across the odd
\nquote-unquote rock and roll fan who proudly declares their disdain
\nfor the Beatles. Granted, your mileage may vary; you don’t have to
\nlove the Beatles (or the Stones or Zeppelin or\u2026) to be a
\nrock and roll fan. But you DO have to respect them, and pay
\nattention to them, and learn from them. Otherwise you’re missing a
\nmammoth chunk of musical history that continues to this day to
\ninfluence the sounds you hear on your radio.<\/p>\n
Barry O’Brien of Dublin, Ireland did not miss the Beatles boat.
\nOn the contrary, he climbed on board, volunteered as first mate and
\nappears to be pretty much running the rig on
\nSpark<\/i>, his splendiferously well-crafted four-song EP. It’s
\nall here; jangly melodies, tight arrangements, superb harmonies,
\ncreative production flourishes, sharp musical turns and hook after
\nmemorable hook.<\/p>\n
Opener “Cut Me Out” kicks things off at a languid pace as
\nO’Brien lays some sweet, Harrison-like picking over a dreamy
\nascending melody. The bridge is nice, too, a heavier interlude with
\nbrooding electronic accents hiding down in the mix.<\/p>\n
Sophomore cut “The Strangest Game” might be the most
\nmodern-sounding thing here, jumping a couple of decades forward to
\nborrow from Elvis Costello’s early ’80s playbook (especially that
\nbiting organ tone). It’s a fun track sprinkled with breakdowns that
\nkeep the tempo surging and falling back.<\/p>\n
Third in line, “Sisters In The Sky” is a pleasant change of
\npace, a pastoral ballad with smooth acoustic lead and rhythm
\nguitar, string accents for texture and a bit of a CSN feel in the
\nbreathy, layered vocals.<\/p>\n
The closing “Under The Waves,” like “Cut Me Out” before it,
\nfeels like it could be a lost cut from that other virtual Beatles
\ntribute band Fastball, all bouncy rhythms, layered harmonies and
\nassertive hooks. (No worries, Barry — I am one of the nineteen
\npeople left in North America who still love Fastball.) Just to up
\nthe ante, O’Brien gives “Under” a
\nSgt. Pepper’s<\/i> outro, a fadeout that fades back in to reprise
\nthe melody with the addition of horns.<\/p>\n
O’Brien, who covers songwriting, lead vocals, guitar and
\nkeyboards, is abetted by musical mates Keith Farrell (bass, backing
\nvocals and production), Aidan O’Grady (drums), and a considerable
\ncast of guest players. Special kudos have to go to Farrell for his
\nwork shaping the sound of one of the best-produced indie discs I’ve
\never had the pleasure of popping in my system. The perfectly
\nbalanced mix is clear as day while retaining an organic feel
\nthroughout.<\/p>\n
In sum, my guess is if you gave this a spin for Sir Paul, he’d
\nnod and grin and bob his head to the beat. It doesn’t get much
\nbetter than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":27047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7156],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38373","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-barry-obrien","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38373"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38373"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}