Solo acoustic has long been singer-songwriter Ben Bostick\u2019s primary format for live gigging. By contrast, his studio albums have typically had a fuller sound, whether he was recording with a band, as on his several \u201coutlaw country\u201d records, or playing most of the parts himself, as on 2020\u2019s acoustic Among The Faceless Crowd<\/i> or 2025\u2019s symphonic Become Other<\/i>. Bostick\u2019s new disc Solo Act<\/i> takes its title to the extreme: it\u2019s a true solo record, just his voice and acoustic guitar, with the full album credits reading simply \u201cwritten, performed & produced by Ben Bostick.\u201d<\/p>\n
The set of songs Bostick has assembled for this outing feel aligned with the theme of the title track\u2014that each of us is fundamentally alone, searching for connection but often struggling to establish or sustain it. Each of these tracks is animated by the words and thoughts of that Bostick specialty, the unreliable narrator, and several of these first-person narratives underscore the narrator\u2019s lack of self-awareness as they stumble through their situations, tripping over their own foibles and mistakes.<\/p>\n
Kickoff cut \u201cWaiting At The Bar\u201d is a stunner\u2014both sweet and melancholy, beautifully played and sung\u2014about a guy waiting at the bar for his wife to arrive for a dinner reservation. The catch is, he may be left waiting there forever. The narrator\u2019s devotion is clear; what\u2019s left artfully unsaid is the reason his wife is absent, a mystery that makes this vignette all the more compelling.<\/p>\n
That sense of melancholy carries over into \u201cSay Goodnight To The Blues\u201d (\u201cThey say time heals all wounds \/ But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true\u201d) as the narrator tries to power through his anguish before shifting to another stage of grief. \u201cI Never Loved You Anyway\u201d finds our narrator deep in anger and denial, protesting theatrically that he\u2019s moved on and in fact never loved his ex, when it\u2019s obvious the opposite is true.<\/p>\n
A fresh shade of melancholy, the darkest here, is explored on \u201cAria,\u201d a lament for a dead partner that finds Bostick going for it with a bold and rangy performance that exploits the richness and the resonance of his voice. Next up, the \u201cwinter is coming\u201d blues are the focus of \u201cThe First Of Autumn,\u201d which chronicles the shift of mood when autumn arrives.<\/p>\n
The first half of the album closes out with the lightest subject matter found here as Bostick offers up fond, nostalgic memories of afterschool rounds of \u201cSuper Nintendo\u201d (\u201cFace full of pimples and braces \/ Couldn\u2019t talk to a girl, no \/ But I saved the princess \/ In Mario World.\u201d) Shifting both tone and tempo, on \u201cSlipping Away\u201d Bostick delivers an up-tempo consideration of how the most important things life can be hard to grasp and may slip right through our hands, e.g. childhood, or a marriage. It\u2019s a hooky and upbeat treatment of a sad reality.<\/p>\n
In similar fashion, \u201cMercy\u201d frames a serious tune about making the choice to opt out of conflict with your partner and ask for mercy inside an upbeat, hooky approach. Upending expectations again, \u201cHearts Change\u201d presents the inverse of a love song: a contemplation of how people fall out of love: \u201cWe swear there\u2019s nothing we can\u2019t make it through, we\u2019re sure \/ We trust that we can work it out just like before \/ But that\u2019s not the way it always goes \/ Nobody likes to say it but everybody knows \/ That hearts change.\u201d Another up-tempo tune finds Bostick \u201cLosing Patience\u201d with a potential partner who keeps her walls up, leaving him ready to move on.<\/p>\n
A similar theme is partner-swapped when Bostick declares, to a sublime acoustic hook, that he\u2019s \u201cGoing Going Gone\u201d\u2014\u201cMy heart was yours for the taking \/ All yours for a song \/ But you just left it there breaking, baby \/ Now it\u2019s going, going, going, gone.\u201d The very meta closing title track is a mid-tempo number employing the \u201cband as family\u201d analogy as the narrator concludes that though \u201cI\u2019ve had bands, more than a few \/ Several wives and girlfriends, too \/ It\u2019s sad to me, but it\u2019s a fact \/ I\u2019m better off a solo act.\u201d It\u2019s a track that feels like it might want to be in a faster tempo, but may be more interesting at this more deliberate pace.<\/p>\n
With a solo recording there is literally nowhere to hide, and Ben Bostick doesn\u2019t try here. His arrangements are as authentic as his lyrics; he\u2019s a superb guitarist with a great sense of rhythm and a facility for adding percussion with little slaps and taps on the guitar body. And while the production is as stark as one might anticipate, with no \u201cfixes\u201d applied, Bostick does add a touch of echo to his naturally resonant vocals, only adding to the sense that you\u2019re sitting in a quiet room with him as he performs.<\/p>\n
The isolation inherent in a true solo record suits these songs perfectly, each one at its core an examination of and reflection on loneliness and the search for connection. Solo Act <\/i>distills Bostick\u2019s art down to its essence, while delivering several new gems to add to his collection. Where his muse takes him next is anybody\u2019s guess, but in this moment, Solo Act <\/i>shines as sterling example of heartfelt songcraft and authentic performance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10172],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-47360","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ben-bostick","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47360","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=47360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47360"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}