Simon Joyner: Out Into The Snow [Album Review]
I may get railed on for making a Dylan comparison here, but Simon Joyner and the master himself share a few points. There’s the minimal acoustic guitar and equally minimal accompaniment in songs like “The Drunken Boat” and “Sunday Morning Song For Sara”. There’s the traditional folk element rampant throughout each of his songs. And there’s a slight vocal similarity as well. Sure, Joyner may not be the songwriter Bob is, as that feat would truly be amazing, but his songs have that same timeless folk quality that dabbles in Americana.
Out Into The Snow is a cohesive album packed with odes to forgotten eras and the romanticism of the wanderer. Songs like “Out Into The Snow” and “Roll On” bring rock into the mix, and even go so far as to flirt with country, but they’re inherently folk. If you can expect anything from Simon Joyner, it’s superior quality songwriting (yes, not quite on par with Dylan, but it’s far from bad). And with twelve albums under his belt, Out Into The Snow is packed with Joyner’s best stuff yet.
Simon Joyner: Out Into The Snow [mp3]
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Team Love [CD, 2009]
1. The Drunken Boat
2. The Arsonist
3. Ambulances
4. Sunday Morning Song For Sara
5. Last Evening On Earth
6. Peace In My Time
7. Out In The Snow
8. Roll On
Goddamn these are beautiful. While I agree that Simon’s voice has taken on a more dylanesque tone and timbre over the years, I just noticed that it has also taken on even more a Leonard Cohen quality.
Listen to Out into The Snow and see what I mean.
God, and Cohen was immortal when he wrote his best, but when his voice deepened he became angelic.
May Mr. Joiner gain his wings as unassumingly. They’re already beginning to show. N
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