It might take a moment to adapt your sensibilities to David Corley\u2019s gravelly, twenty-miles-of-rough-road-and-a-bottle-of-whiskey voice at the start; it occupies a universe all its own, and chances are it\u2019s either going to work for you or it isn\u2019t. But I listened to the first song here and knew I needed to hear the second, and then the third, and by the fourth song, the dude had flat-out seduced me with his songwriting. Like Dylan and Waits before him, David Corley is a lyric poet inhabiting the grizzled, remarkably expressive voice of a blue-collar Everyman.<\/p>\n
Still, albums like Available Light<\/i> tend hinge on atmosphere. You have to feel like you\u2019re in that darkened little dive of a club past midnight and the world has narrowed down to just you and the band and a bottle of something strong. Corley and producer Hugh Christopher Brown absolutely nail that barroom confessional vibe, with production that feels live and organic, but also precise. These songs take their time to develop, with several clocking in around six minutes, and the last over seven, but there\u2019s not a wasted note, and every line is crafted with care. <\/p>\n
Nowhere is this truer than on the magnificent opening title track, a rumbling, tumbling manifesto about seizing every imperfect moment before it flashes by: \u201cThe book, well it\u2019s a movie now \/ \u2018bout how I was busted up and laid out \/ tried to grab onto this girl, but she was goin\u2019 way too fast around \/ didn\u2019t understand quite how she was wound \/ but ya know we wound up tight \/ and I shot it all with the available light.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over a rootsy, Band-like bed of acoustic and electric guitar, keys (mostly Hammond organ, courtesy of producer Brown), bass (Tony Scherr) and drums (Gregor Beresford), Corley next leads you out \u201cBeyond The Fences,\u201d assisted once again by the background vocals of Kate Fenner and Sarah McDermott, their sweet, uplifting tones offering a smooth counterpoint to Corley\u2019s jagged lead vocals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Joke\u201d ups the tempo, adopting a bit of a Van Morrison feel to sketch a gritty street-scene, continuing the thought with the languorous, sighing, equally Morrisonesque \u201cEasy Mistake\u201d (\u201cI\u2019m just tryin\u2019 to do the right thing \/ That\u2019s an easy mistake to make\u201d). The pair nicely tees up \u201cDog Tales,\u201d another stunner, a chunky-riffed number that crosses from dream into nightmare and back again. When Corley declares \u201cI am beyond the bounds of all reason \/ I am standin\u2019 alone in the gale, caught in the hurricane \/ down in the crease under the soft light\u2019s veil,\u201d it\u2019s hard not to envision old King Lear bellowing at the wind.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnspoken Thing\u201d \u00a0and \u201cLean\u201d both feature Fenner and McDermott again offering terrific support, with the male-female counterpoint vocals developing into a call-and-answer that almost becomes a conversation in places, their suppleness contrasting beautifully with Corley\u2019s roughness. \u201cNeptune \/ Line You\u2019re Leavin\u2019 On\u201d again ventures into Morrison territory, a gentle, wise train-station goodbye to a restless lover (\u201cI don\u2019t believe you\u2019re gonna find things getting any easier \/ on down the line\u201d).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe End Of My Run\u201d is a slow and steady lament, a soliloquy of personal calamity that Corley delivers with the sort of deep conviction that only personal experience brings. The album closes with \u201cThe Calm Revolution,\u201d an anthem of quiet determination highlighted by a silvery electric guitar figure running through it, a single, continuously massaged note that fades in and out like a faraway siren in the depths of night.<\/p>\n
At times, Corley\u2019s work reminds me of The Hold Steady in the sense that the words stand on their own; the lyrics are complete narratives, so fully realized that the music can feel more decorative than fundamental to the songs. The difference between Corley and The Hold Steady is that Corley actually sings, though at times in a voice so relaxed and comfortable in its craggy skin that it feels more like a conversation. <\/p>\n
While Corley has been involved with music in some form for most of his life, this album is, at age 53, his debut as a recording artist. It was worth every year of waiting, every life experience and hard-won insight that led him here to this moment. With a voice like a gravel quarry and the heart of a lion, David Corley constructs a universe of broken souls searching for moments of redemption. Available Light<\/i> is a remarkable achievement, an album aglow with a ragged beauty that\u2019s simply magnificent to behold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9538],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-43956","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-david-corley","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43956","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=43956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43956"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43956"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}