A pianist from Tennessee but now residing in New York City, Hans Chew earned quite a bit of fame for his work with Jack Rose on his solo albums. It’s probably lesser known that Chew is also member of D. Charles Speer & the Helix, which puts an odd spin on country music.<\/p>\n
On Open Sea,<\/i> his fourth solo album since 2010, Chew’s unparalleled brand of piano based Americana, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll are heavily influenced by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Fairport Convention, Mighty Babe, and The Grateful Dead. The rhythm section of Rhyton helps him flesh out these six tunes. <\/p>\n
Lead off track \u201cGive Up The Ghost\u201d is an acoustic, guitar-fueled Americana offering where Chews’ crisp vocals are complemented with warm keys and an occasional (electric) guitar solo. The song surpasses the six minute mark, and as it progresses, it moves in jam-band territory. \u201cCruikshanks\u201d follows with ’70s rock influenced grooves, where breezy melodies are met with a grittier vocal approach from Chew, giving it a rougher edge.<\/p>\n
At the halfway point, the title track \u201cOpen Sea\u201d is a lush and smooth rocker that sounds live, while the intense, acoustic acrobatics of \u201cWho Am Your Love?\u201d is the most tumultuous cut here, unwinding with a blues and classic rock spirit. <\/p>\n
The last third of the album boasts the nine minute \u201cFreely,\u201d where a handful of genres are touched upon, including progressive and country rock, as well as some piano solos. Meanwhile closer, \u201cExtra Mile\u201d might be the most accessible tune. A charged acoustic rocker, it comes off as a protest folk song, with plenty of vigor and even builds into an upbeat anthemic piano greatness. <\/p>\n
If there’s someone else like Hans Chew out there, I’m not aware of it. And even if there is, it’s unlikely the songwriting prowess, skilled musicianship, and level of sophistication would parallel the near perfection of Open Sea<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":33391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10120],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-45207","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hans-chew","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45207","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\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45207"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45207"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}