Any long-time reader of the DV\u2014and of my contributions\u2014knows that I\u2019m a huge Duncan Sheik fan. Duncan Sheik is Honey Badger\u2014he just don\u2019t care, and he does what he wants. He alternately writes songs that critique his own audience (\u201cShopping\u201d from White Limousine<\/i>), records an entire album of 1980s covers, and wins multiple Tonys (Spring Awakening<\/i>). He has brought both Alice In Wonderland<\/i> and American Psycho<\/i> to the stage\u2026 and written his own musical (Whisper House)<\/i>. Somewhere in the midst of all this, he\u2019s managed to knock out a bevy of albums while dabbling in multiple styles.<\/p>\n
The latest quail in the bevy is Claptrap<\/i>\u2014and once again, the musical chameleon has shifted styles slightly. It\u2019s both more spiritual and more funky, a tuneful smoothie of pop catchiness and deep thought.<\/p>\n
Claptrap <\/i>starts off with \u201cExperience,\u201d and it seems a seamless continuation of \u201cSo There,\u201d the last track on his album before this, Legerdemain<\/i>. \u201cExperience\u201d talks about both consulting and believing in one\u2019s spiritual leaders, whoever they are, and in following one\u2019s own experience, and it\u2019s food for thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmoke And Mirrors,\u201d another powerful track, seems to be about being who one is as compared to being what others expect. \u201cUnaware\u201d is a powerful, arching ballad about accepting one\u2019s own lack of wisdom, and \u201cOut From Underneath\u201d counters with a Buddha-like rejection of ego. (As a side note, this seems to be Sheik\u2019s most transparent album spiritually; he has been a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism.)<\/p>\n
The prime cuts, though, act in perfect counterpoint to each other. \u201cThere\u2019s No Telling\u201d kicks off with a funky bass and piano, then spins a dark tale of excess, loss, and regretting past actions. Meanwhile, \u201cMaybe\u201d claims there is hope, that we can come out of the darkness around us, and there is something decent to believe in. They\u2019re both magnificent.<\/p>\n
Look, I like Duncan Sheik\u2014but I like him because he\u2019s so damned good sometimes. This is definitely one of those times; check out Claptrap<\/i> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7082],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-46523","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-duncan-sheik","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46523","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46523"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}