CD Odyssey Disc 1163: Andrew Combs

I’m fresh from a weekend full of fun activity, including a night spent with friends discovering music. The big discovery for me this time around was a German hard rock band called Wucan that was brought over by my friend Ross. I’ve given them a deep dive on Bandcamp for the last couple of days and it is fair to say there is room on shelf for their albums, should I ever find them.

But on to an artist I discovered all on my own.

Disc 1163 is… Canyons of my Mind

Artist: Andrew Combs

Year of Release: 2017

What’s up with the Cover? Someone should have told Andrew Combs this is a river, not a canyon. Maybe it is a canyon…in his mind. Get it? Get it?

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of this album on Paste Magazine and decided to check it out. I discover a lot of my music from just paying attention to what’s new and not being afraid to check it out.

How It Stacks Up:  I have two Andrew Combs albums. Of the two, “Canyons of my Mind” is second.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

The last time I reviewed an Andrew Combs album (“All These Dreams” at Disc 1028) it started off rough but slowly won me over. For this reason I gave “Canyons of My Mind multiple listens over the last four days hoping for the same impact. Alas, it was not to be.

The same elements are there - a mix of country, folk and rock sensibilities – but the songs didn’t resonate as strongly as a whole. Combs’ vocals, which previously reminded me favourably of Jim Cuddy, now seemed to lack the same power to deliver the strong emotional messages of the songs. His Gordon Lightfood jangle was still there as well, but lost in the back of the mix.

This is a shame, because Combs is a gifted songwriter. The tracks are heartfelt, with a pretty even mix of tradition and innovation. Unfortunately, I drifted in and out of the mindful state you need to be in to appreciate them. They’d catch me briefly, and then they’d slip back again into the background, like an a.m. radio track playing low on the car stereo while you’re busy trying to find an address.

Part of this was all the lush production that wouldn’t let my ear settle into the tune. This was part of “All These Dreams” as well, but here it is even more pronounced. I need a little more quiet for the beauty to sneak in.

That isn’t to say there aren’t great tracks here. The haunting “Hazel” is the best song on either album, in fact. It is a song about a pale and awkward girl who is nevertheless admired from afar by the narrator. Combs’ vocals are great here as well, climbing into a pining falsetto as he sings the name of his obsession. Combs is also strong on “Lauralee”, a song with a seventies country croon mixed in with some more of that a.m. radio pop. Songs named after women seem to bring the best out in him.

“Rose Coloured Blues” has that Gordon Lightfoot feel I liked on “All These Dreams” but the song didn’t work its way into my heart like his previous efforts. The song has a rambling beat, but it was more late seventies/early eighties fuzzy Lightfoot rather than early hippy folkster Lightfoot. I like both Lightfoots, but if you’re going to emulate one, the safe money is on the hippy version.

Combs also tackles political subjects, singing about environmental destruction on “Dirty Rain” and America’s current president on “Bourgeois King” but neither song is his best effort. They are important topics but it feels like Combs was pushing too hard to make his point. Subtlety can be as important in art as message.

While there are no songs on “Canyons of My Mind” that are terrible, separating them from one another was hard at times, and I got lost in non-musical thoughts many times. I could ascribe that to having a lot on my mind but I always have a lot on my mind. Great albums can always seize your attention.

Instead I think it is the thick production that is like trying to sail on a sea of cream; sweet, thick and hard to make any headway. At his best, Combs draws you in with this effect, but here I drifted away too many times to enjoy the journey.

Best tracks: Hazel, Lauralee, Silk Flowers

CD Odyssey Disc 1028: Andrew Combs

A busy week prevented me from writing this review, but with a series of walks ahead of me today I got up early so I could get my thoughts down before I left and then move on to…who knows?

The odyssey is random, my friends. Embrace the randomness.

Disc 1028 is…All These Dreams

Artist: Andrew Combs

Year of Release: 2015

What’s up with the Cover? Andrew Combs head…and a tear in the upper left corner. I ordered this on Amazon, which I rarely do (support your local record store!) and it came damaged. I suppose I could’ve kicked up a fuss with Amazon, but the older you get the more you realize that those hours you spend getting satisfaction over minor slights are better spent doing something enjoyable.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of Combs’ 2017 album “Canyons of My Mind”. That got me interested, and led me to his back catalogue, and “All These Dreams”.

How It Stacks Up:  I’ve only got two Andrew Combs’ albums. His follow up album, “Canyons of My Mind” has my favourite song by him but “All These Dreams” has better songs and production overall, and so I put it at #1.

Ratings: 4 stars

I’m glad that scheduling conspired to keep this album in my ears for a few extra days, because it got better and better on each listen. If I’d rushed through I might not have recognized it for the subtle beauty it was.

When I got on the bus Tuesday morning, I wasn’t terribly in the mood for Andrew Combs. I had narrowly missed rolling an album by the heavy metal band “Ancient Empires.” I’ve been on a bit of a rediscovery of metal music for the last couple of weeks and rolling Ancient Empires just seemed fitting, but it was not to be. I was to journey once again into the land of indie folk.

What I initially noticed was the odd extra percussion and excess steel guitar on the first track, “Rainy Day Song.” I kept thinking how Combs sounded like Blue Rodeo or Gordon Lightfoot, but not quite as good. The hook on “Foolin’” sounded far too similar to Tom Petty’s “Crawling Back to You” making me wonder if anything new was going to happen.

About halfway through the first listen, my ears settled in and accepted their mission, and I started to appreciate Combs for some of the very reasons I had earlier been unimpressed. He still reminded me heavily of Blue Rodeo and Gordon Lightfoot, but this was a good thing. Other than “Foolin’” he didn’t sound derivative. He sounded like someone who wasn’t afraid to bring country, folk and rock elements together and make them work.

Combs is a gifted songwriter, creating melodies that have a mid-career sophistication to them without falling into the trap of being fancy for the sake of being fancy. I would probably have made the production a little less lush, but Combs leaves sufficient room for the melody to breathe its magic that it is just a minor quibble on my part. He is aided ably by excellent playing of studio musicians Jeremy Fetzer (guitar) and Spencer Cullum Jr. (pedal steel). The mix is nice and even, giving every instrument a chance to shine, and Combs’ voice is powerful enough to rise above it all when the song demands it.

Combs’ voice reminded me of Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy. He doesn’t have Cuddy’s chops, or the same depth of broken-hearted hurt that Cuddy has, but he comes awfully close. He certainly has enough of both to make these intensely personal songs resonate with authenticity.

The song that first drew me in was “Pearl.” Driven by the heavy thud of the bass guitar, and punctuated by cascade of minor keys, “Pearl” is a song that asks you to look a bit more carefully at the down-and-out. Everyone has a story: a homeless man who was once a gifted musician, a prostitute raising her two younger brothers, and a criminal who took the rap so his brother could run. “Pearl” helps you get past the surface and see that marginal people also have a story worth telling.

With “Pearl” giving me purchase on Combs’ sound and purpose, the album began falling into place. “Long Gone Lately” is a country song the way country music sounds when it is at its best; plaintive and heartfelt. The song is punctuated by steel guitar and some kind of trail whistling, and it all works. There’s even a little castanet action, which I now welcomed.

A run of solid songs cascaded by, full of flawed triumphs, things broken and then reconstructed into song. Combs dredges up some dark thoughts and works them out with you as witness. “Slow Road to Jesus” is a song about someone resigned to drink himself into an early grave. It is followed by “Month of Bad Habits” where he decides a month of self-destructive behavior is sufficient. OK, technically he says it’ll be “more than a month of bad habits” but you get the impression he’ll call it quits before he meets Jesus.

The album ends with “Suwannee County”. It is a stripped down pastoral, and features the best vocals Combs offers on the album. “Suwannee County” is a quiet, gentle invitation to start again, once your soul is healed up and ready.

Armed with that fresh start, I began the album again, and then a third time, and then a fourth. On each successive listen I liked it more. “Rainy Day Song” became a beautiful, slow building track – a song that signaled the coming storm of the heart that Combs would explore through the rest of the record. “Foolin’” still felt a little derivative, but only a little. It now felt like the outlier on the record, not its representative.

“All These Dreams” is a headphones album. Like a lot of beautiful things, it steals into your soul when you are being quiet and attentive, and giving it a chance to work its magic. I encourage you to do so.

Best tracks: Rainy Day Song, Strange Bird, Pearl, Long Gone Lately, In the Name of You, All These Dreams, Suwannee County