Author: Brian McMurray
Source: Harmonium
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There’s a reason some artists are dubbed with the title of singer/songwriter. Let’s face it, there are a lot of musicians that both sing and write their own music, but not all of them are considered singer/songwriters. It’s no surprise that most singer/songwriters use little more than some acoustic guitar and their natural talent. That’s really all they need. Singer/songwriters are artists who are incredibly gifted on both accounts, and Adam Arcuragi is one of these artists.
The interesting thing about Arcuragi’s self-titled debut is that these facets of his talent seem to be showcased on different songs. Take the opening track “All the Bells” for instance. The songwriting here is as good as on any other track, but Arcuragi’s slightly gritty rasp combined with the mid-tempo melody obscures the solid songwriting. The listener finds themselves paying more attention to the music than the lyrics, perhaps rightfully so.
Recorded as almost an afterthought, “1981” is more of the same. Arcuragi has admitted his voice was a little shot at the time he recorded the track, but it gives the song some extra personality as he belts “Between you and me / I’ll be singing through my teeth / And smiling as I go / And the words may all be wrong / But I still sing every song / my last breath will lay low.” Still, I found myself tapping to the beat rather than singing along with the excellent lyrics.
On the other side of the spectrum, tracks like the aptly-titled “Delicate” and “Part of the Sky” are considerably slower, and Arcuragi’s voice loses its grit, thus it is much easier to fully digest the lyrics present. “Delicate” swoons along beautifully as Eve Miller (Matt Pond PA), Mike Kennedy (Audible, Mazarin, Lefty’s Deceiver), and Peter Wonsowski add some cello, guitar, and singing saw respectively. “Part of the Sky” is just Arcuragi, an acoustic guitar, and some songwriting that’s impossible to ignore.
It’s a song about death, but it’s an accepted view of death. Maybe even a hopeful one as many of the lyrics such as “The part of the sky where the sun / Comes up is where someday / I will eventually to by / But please celebrate don’t be sad / Cause I will meet you there / And like the locusts we can sing until we die” indicate.
When the album does add extra instrumentation, it’s added in just the right places, as with the aforementioned “Delicate” or the slick Wurlitzer on “Little Yellow Boat”. What results is a self-titled debut that’s personal and beautiful. It’s hard to deny Arcuragi’s talent, and his debut has christened the birth of another amazing singer/songwriter for us to drown our tears in.