Rees Shad – Porcelain Angel
I’ve reviewed Rees Shad before & I seldom go back to whatever I wrote. I prefer to see if my impression has changed. Otherwise, I’d fall to the temptation of repeating myself & that may help to do what an honest assessment is supposed to do.
“Ain’t That The Way” opens the album & is a reasonably basic composition but it’s how Rees presents it that’s captivating & creative. Then his voice goes in another gear with “Magic Lantern Presentation” which seems to have been written with character in mind before the music & lyrics were applied. It has a nice deep narrative, a bit haunting but cool & calculated like the best vintage folk tales of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly & the like.
Rees’s vocal approach is a cross between Joe Henry, Peter Himmelman & John Wesley Harding – an all-knowing tonality that pours forth not like water or gasoline but thicker like honey…like oil…like blood. There are 12 rootsy slices from the imagination of Massachusetts’ musician Rees Shad on his 17th LP Porcelain Angel (Drops March 21/Shadville Records/56:32). There are 2 bonus cuts added to the LP produced by Rees (bass/dobro/acoustic & electric guitars/electric piano/vocals) & Doug Ford (claps/guitar).
Rees’s genre bends many compositions but never does it in a manner that distracts a listener from the casualness of each tune. There is no pompous bombastic showboating or posturing. It’s all about the song, the tale & the polish. A full dive into a darker folky element begins to smoke with harmonica & the excellent vocal drawl of “Coda Blues.”
If I had to categorize Shad, I’d squeeze him in with bluesman John Hammond & singer-songwriter Marc Cohn (“Silver Thunderbird” “Walking In Memphis”) which places Rees Shad in an area of eccentric folk artist who isn’t afraid to change his vocal tone & personality to serve the song. It’s Rees’s diversity that appeals. He never seems to get bogged down in any one style or song structure. He nitpicks influences but never uses them so uniformly that they’re obvious to a listener. With “A Man Like Me” the song borders on a groove similar to what Muscle Shoals studios once specialized in. There’s even a James Brown-type left hook horn run supported by satiny sexy female vocals. Would easily fit in a juke joint among the whiskey & beer aromas.
Highlights – “Ain’t That The Way,” “Magic Lantern Presentation,” “Coda Blues,” (both versions), “Isn’t It A Lovely Day,” “Porcelain Angel” & “A Man Like Me.”
Musicians – Marcus Benoit (tenor sax), Eleanor Dubinsky, Wanda Houston & Kemp Harris (vocals), Peter Grimaldi (trumpet), Rob Kovacs (drums/claps/percussion), Jeff Link (bass/claps), Rick Ruskin (acoustic guitar), John Savage (baritone sax), RB Stone (harmonica), Dario Acosta Teich (guitar) & Natalia Zukerman (lap steel guitar/vocal).
8pp stitched lyric insert included. Color image by Tim Gaudreau. CD at Bandcamp + https://www.reesshadmusic.com/
