Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ray - top of his game, 10 Oct 2006
Ray Lamontagne's first album has been relaunched four or five times (but the record company never seems to follow through). As a result Trouble has been out for sometime now and the multiple launches has delayed the release of his second album here in the UK, which is a shame as the sequel- Till The Sun Turns Black, seriously eclipses his debut Trouble, not that Trouble was a poor effort, far from it.
Till The Sun Turns Black sees Ray's vocal delivery coming across a little sweeter and a little less dry than on Trouble, and the instrumentation is far richer, running from a Stax/Memphis Horns backing on a couple of tracks to a muted trumpet that wouldn't sound out of place in a Northern England brass band, then there is the purest simplicity of a guitar and voice (Lesson Learned); then we have a simple string backing on the title track. The overall effect is that the music carries you along without detracting from the Ray's vocal performances.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nothing like , 3 Aug 2006
How refreshing it is when a master producer and a great artist collaborate for a second time , only to reward listeners with a collection of songs that sound nothing like the prior recording. Ethan Johns and Ray LaMontagne hook up to produce one of the real stunning and rewarding discs I've heard this year. Stunning, because how different the disc is from it's predecessor. Overall the recording is a hushed, lush affair with orchestration and simple use of acoustic sounds which at times sound so fluid, yet fragile, that you think the song is about to fall apart. Organ , guitar, flute, you name it, seems that Ethan pulls them all out of the closet for use at the right time. Ray's vocals are far more subdued on this release and he only let's it fly on the radio single, "Three More Days" which relies heavily on a simple funky organ groove that slowly rises into an all out rocking affair with the added bonus of Memphis horns. Because of the song's slow build up, it fits nicely into the mix and doesn't stand out of place. There's flourishes of everyone from George Martin with The Beatles, John Lennon with Billy Preston, Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" era and Joe Boyd with Nick Drake. The gorgeous Spanish guitar on "Lesson Learned" is of heart breaking stuff which then leads the listener into the only instrumental track, "Truly, Madly, Deeply. The album closes with "Within You" which has to be one of the most beautiful, simple pleads for love and peace in our world since John Lennon and Yoko Ono were doing it in the 70's. Yeah, the lyrics are short and repetitive, but that's the point, to focus our ears on the simple message backed by the New Orleans style horns, ukulele, strings and Ray's amazing voice, which sounds amazingly like a slide guitar on this track. Good stuff!
Stand out tracks for me:
-"Within You"
-"Lesson Learned"
-"Be Here Now"
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you loved Trouble..., 25 Jul 2006
Then you should love this! This for me is a real progression from his first album. It is quite simply a beautiful piece of work. The songs follow each other with a real sense of continuation-it isn't a concept album, but it all works. Of course, some of the songs are meant to segue into each other. The join between the penultimate and the last song is so sweet. And the instrumental "Truly, Madly, Deeply" which follows to bitter "Lesson Learned is incredible. The last line of the latter song is sung with such an understated edge of resignation and venomous bitterness. God, this man can sing.
But what I love about his singing is the way he seems to be able convey massive amounts of emotion, yet sound as if he is holding so much back! I don't know how to explain what I mean, but if you listen you'll get it.
There is so much on this album to love. He crosses again (as he did with "Trouble") so many genres, but never sounds as if he's just trying to impress!
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