Sometimes cover art is frivolous decoration; sometimes it\u2019s a glimpse into the very heart of the music you\u2019re about to hear.\u00a0 The cover of Robbie Gil\u2019s Save Yourself<\/i> features old-time-playbill-styled lettering with an illustration of a worn and weary man struggling to escape from inside a bottle.<\/p>\n
That may sound a tad melodramatic\u2026 but only until you hear the music it goes with.<\/p>\n
It takes less than a minute\u2019s time for the listener to get a handle on Robbie Gil\u2019s musical persona; take 30 percent Marc Cohn piano-based insightful introspection, add 30 percent Joe Cocker whiskey-voiced charisma, pack in 30 percent Meat Loaf yes-I-will-too-make-the-rafters-shake delivery, and sprinkle with 10 percent pure Broadway showmanship, and you\u2019ve got 100 percent of soul-baring, gravel-voiced, over-the-top, utterly sincere Robbie Gil.<\/p>\n
The dense yet raw narratives of Save Yourself<\/i>, Gil\u2019s second full-length CD, are filled with recriminations, regrets, promises to change and visions of a brighter tomorrow somewhere beyond the horizon. This album\u2014whose songs blend one into another like the soundtrack to a musical\u2014feels at times like an alcoholic\u2019s never-ending lament of rationalizations, justifications and passionate yet inherently suspect promises. And, it charms. (No, really.)<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cSave Yourself\u201d doesn\u2019t so much begin as continue, seeming to start in the middle of the melody line and bringing Gil\u2019s voice to the forefront in a matter of seconds with these instantly memorable lyrics: \u201cWhen you march into battle, would you fight for the other side \/ Would you swear on a big stack of bibles with all of your lies \/ Would you steal from the desperate, would you give to a thief \/ Would you lie to yourself, \u2018til you made it belief \/ Well,\u00a0 I would — I\u2019m no good, I\u2019m no good, I\u2019m no good \/ Save yourself, \u2018cause I\u2019m not what you think I am\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
From there it\u2019s a cascade of Gil and more Gil, the man under the white-hot spotlight mixing the piano-based melodic sense of Cohn, the blues-shouter vocal stylings of Cocker, and the sky-large emotional release of a Broadway show-stopper.\u00a0 Oh, he might coil it up for a moment to milk the dramatic tension of more restrained numbers like \u201cOne Of These Days\u201d or \u201cShining In The Sun,\u201d but it\u2019s only a matter of time\/verses before he\u2019s busting loose again. (And speaking of Cocker, when Gil delivers \u201cCome Home,\u201d a terrific duet with silken-voiced Sarah Versprille, the contrasting harmonies and big finish almost inevitably inspire visions of Richard Gere and Debra Winger making their big exit to the swelling strains of Cocker and Jennifer Warnes lifting the audience \u201cUp Where You Belong.\u201d Hey, it was a moment\u2026 )<\/p>\n
What carries this album in the end\u2014almost in spite of Gil\u2019s at times over-the-top delivery\u2014is the rich poetry and insight of his lyrics. \u201cI have been my own worst enemy \/ Sayin\u2019 no to what was good for me \/ Now the only thing left to say is yes\u201d is just one smartly crafted triplet from the gently anthemic \u201cReady As I\u2019ll Ever Be\u201d; \u201cIt\u2019s hard to be noble when you know that you\u2019re not\u201d goes one particularly tart line from its companion \u201cHard To Be Normal.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cCollide (This Ain\u2019t Right)\u201d is built around one of those ageless melodies that feels familiar even as Gil nearly blots it out with his almost operatic delivery. Twin closers \u201cEverywhere But Here\u201d and \u201cValentine\u201d carry this undercurrent of bombast to its logical conclusion, dead-serious romantic tunes with a distinct grandiosity to them.\u00a0 From the latter: \u201cI\u2019ll carry you with me, wherever I go \/ And I\u2019ll keep holdin\u2019 on, I don\u2019t know how to let go \/ And you gave up on me, but I won\u2019t give up on you \/ I\u2019m still not ready to start serenadin\u2019 somebody new \/ Guess I\u2019ll keep waitin\u2019 for you to come through\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Save Yourself<\/i> is nothing if not melodramatic, performed with an outsized Broadway flair that at moments you almost want to laugh at\u2014except you couldn\u2019t possibly, because Gil is so damn committed and sincere, and beneath that huge delivery, his lyrics are so compellingly rendered.\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever your individual reaction may be to his very distinct musical approach, Robbie Gil believes in what he\u2019s doing so deeply that it simply forces the listener to believe, too.\u00a0 He gives these tunes 110 percent, and the results are both undeniable and undeniably impressive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8708],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42331","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-robbie-gil","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42331","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=42331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42331"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}