Shane Pendergast – Winter Grace
Canadian folk singer Shane Pendergast has a new album this week, Winter Grace. This is good music, delivered with a strength that’s not overpowering, as he spins easy tales of surviving the elements, processing mortality and simple observations that connect to an existential depth.
“Take the Air” opens the album with a sunny Allman Brothers – like guitar style, piano, and Shane’s unique, fluid vocals. It’s a song about your over being blown and needing to make an exit. It’s never easy. “Bird beside me / Empty stare / Words of wisdom rarely shared / Looking for my easy out / I don’t know how to say goodbye / time has come to take the air.” In the title track, Shane’s melodious guitar style with icy piano is gentle and the winterscape comes to life: “Freedom of the frozen bay / Skating at the close of day / Tales of pain and paradise / Etched in cursive on the ice / In this transitory space / We find winter grace.”
“Playing Crib by the Stove on Gibbs Crik Road” picks up the pace a bit with a relatable vignette of passing time playing cards on a winter day, and the result is charming. “Only Drifting By” offers pretty music and the profound sketch of a relationship that ran its course: “Little lives we chart / Broken bread and hearts/
Clutching weathered maps / Holding on to scraps from the very start / truth is, you and I were only drifting by.”
In “Candle on the Sill” is letting go of a person that you’ve depended on so much, and the reflective grieving that happens in the empty space that remains: “Never thought you’d go / For you always had an everlasting glow / As you’re pushing off your parting words chime through / I love you And I tell you that I feel the same / Now the journey’s done and I’ve made a blanket with the yarns you’ve spun / Now and then I hear your voice upon the wind / Lilting in / Giving little flickers to the flame.” Sorrowful and reflective.
As Shane says, “I like to reference old folk traditions and sayings in my songwriting. In this song, I use the expression “the last hurrah” to convey the idea of celebrating life’s fleeting moments instead of succumbing to sadness. The last verse especially resonates deeply for me as it recalls a bittersweet night spent with my grandmother, near the end of her life.”
The music on this album is reflective and genuine, with piano playing and acoustic guitar melodies lighting the path with Shane’s easy, comforting vocals. Find more details here on his website: https://www.shanependergast.com/
Musicians on Winter Grace are Shane Pendergast on vocals, guitar and harmonica; Logan Richard on guitar, piano, bass and percussion; Aaron Comeau on piano and slide guitar; Sam Langille on bass; Josh Langille on drums and guitar; Rowen Gallant on fiddle; Michael Pendergast on accordion; and Emilea May on backing vocals.
The album was produced by Logan Richard; and engineered and mixed by Adam Gallant; and mastered at Parachute Mastering. Photography was courtesy of Justin Rix with album design by Chris Bailey.