CHRIS TAYLOR
Daylight
Perhaps best described as a quirky American troubadour going his own way and coming up with songs that are his own but may have further appeal. He doesn’t seem to want to jump on any bandwagon or be a trendsetter ..though I could be wrong. And there are influences at work, as becomes evident when you play the album.
‘Every Little Thing’ has a confident folky strum intro recalling James Taylor and the Laurel Canyon songwriter coterie, the insistent singing at home over a lo-fi backing ; ‘Little Thing’ has a plaintive vocal a touch too Rufus Wainwright for this reviewer perhaps but the occasional crack in the voice warms the song, which seems to be a lullaby for slackers, the electric guitar noodling through a short delay.
‘Now ‘DogTown’ has a delicious acoustic guitar combined with a rotary tone electric bringing in an echoey vocal, evoking David Byrne dropped into a small MidWest town. It’s a poetic lament and very catchy with a cute chorus to boot. Haunting and on the edge of understated genius…
‘Set Our Sails’ uses a twinkling folk guitar as languid decoration..he does aching rather well, this chap. The chugging tempo of Whatever The Day Brings’ has Taylor singing ‘You Don’t Have To Run Any More’ and a melody that the late Kirsty McColl would have loved and maybe covered.
‘Same Way Twice’ breaks the mood as it features a wobbly psych intro before a barbed fuzz guitar canter fusing Crazy Horse and Lou Reed ; but ‘Ragamuffin Song’ ’ups the Reed quotient still further in its conspiratorial delivery set to a light acoustic strum.
‘Slide’ sounds whispery and haunted.
A nice set of songs then with a probably unconscious tinge of my good friend Steve Wynn, of Dream Syndicate, the choice cut here being ‘DogTown’ ,imho
To hear more from Chris Taylor, Follow these links…
http://www.christaylorworld.com
http://christaylor.bandcamp.com
https://twitter.com/realchristaylor
Pete Sargeant
