{"id":40794,"date":"2008-03-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/swiftly-surely\/"},"modified":"2008-03-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T00:00:00","slug":"swiftly-surely","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/swiftly-surely\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiftly, Surely"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s something curiously engaging and really rather special abut the music on singer-songwriter Nathan Xander\u2019s debut release Swiftly, Surely<\/i>. Stylistically the songs on this seven-track mini-album are all steeped in the American folk and country traditions but there\u2019s an eerie starkness to the arrangements and a compelling honesty in Nathan\u2019s vocal delivery that lends weight to the world-weary melancholy pervading his music. This is important because the first requirement of any successful artist is the ability to create music that connects emotionally with an audience, and this Nathan does effortlessly.<\/p>\n

Hailing from Chicago<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, the 25-year-old Xander was first inspired to write his own material at the age of 21 by the music of Neil Young, Kris Kristofferson and Gram Parsons amongst others. A proficient player of harmonica, piano and guitar, the lineage of Xander\u2019s music is fairly easy to trace from Hank Williams through to Neil Young and on into the modern era with the likes of Willy Mason. Of all the musical signposts present in his material however, it\u2019s perhaps the influence of Neil Young that looms largest over Nathan\u2019s work. His sparse, acoustic compositions with their thought-provoking and emotionally vulnerable lyrics echo the best of Young\u2019s After The Gold Rush-<\/i>era music.<\/p>\n

Swiftly, Surely<\/i> opens with the enchanting \u201cBrilliant Before My Eyes,\u201d a track that serves to highlight Xander\u2019s strong, precise finger-picking guitar style to tremendous effect. The song glides along with a beguiling guitar melody, eloquent lyrics and a vocal performance that sounds bravely resigned to the sad inevitability of the future.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s underlying air of eerie melancholy is further heightened by the final track \u201cDarkness,\u201d which paints a mournful picture of the artist as the victim of his own tortured perspective. It also contains some great lyrics, like the vivid imagery of \u201cStraw bones, dirty hands and a crooked nose \/ Feel I\u2019m sitting out there, someplace where nobody ever goes\u201d and the troubled resignation of the song\u2019s key line \u201cAnd darkness becomes a fixture in everybody\u2019s life, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also worthy of mention is \u201cLighthouse,\u201d which recalls some of Steve Earle\u2019s more introspective moments and \u201cAlways Never Home,\u201d which begins with a wordless vocal moan, sung over an acoustic guitar backing that speaks volumes without ever actually saying a word. This intro reminds me of Blind Willie Johnson\u2019s wordless, 1920s ode to melancholy \u201cDark Was The Night,\u201d since it produces much the same heart-wrenching effect. It\u2019s just a pity that it doesn\u2019t last a bit longer; I could happily listen to a whole track like this.<\/p>\n

Although the majority of the material on Swiftly, Surely<\/i> is decidedly strong, not every track hits the mark in terms of quality. \u201cAmerica As Egypt\u201d comes off as a slightly unconvincing misfire, bogged down in its own sobriety and self-righteousness, while \u201cEminent Domain\u201d lacks a truly memorable vocal melody. Still, there\u2019s more than enough good quality material on this mini-album to bode well for future releases. Xander\u2019s nothing if not prolific and a cursory listen to the new material on his MySpace page provides ample proof that the best is still very much yet to come from this singer-songwriter.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

With its rootsy, homespun aesthetic and lyrical honesty, this record will certainly appeal to fans of Willy Mason, Neil Young, Elliot Smith and Wildflowers<\/i>-era Tom Petty. At the time of writing, Swiftly, Surely<\/i> is available from online retailers like CDBaby or as a download from iTunes, but from the quality evident in the best material here, a full international distribution deal for this talented newcomer surely can\u2019t be far away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":29252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8162],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40794","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-nathan-xander","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40794","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\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40794"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}