North Providence’s singer-songwriter Steve Allain offers a lot of tender themes and flinty acoustic music on his new CD Thirteen. His themes are a roadmap of the human heart and his acoustic and electric sounds are the warm vibes that pull you into this tales. His rangy unique, emotive timbre projects a huge amount of feeling with only the slightest changes in dynamics and tempo.
“My Father’s Only Son” is Allain’s recollection of his father as a hearty but distant soul who met life’s challenges head on but wasn’t the most affectionate or attentive dad. Allain’s earthy, gritty delivery on vocals and acoustic guitar make this one a personal treasure. The longing in the look back comes to emotive life through Allain’s persistent strum, haunting background coo, and Brian Minisce’s edgy lead guitar phrase.
Allain’s “Good For You” is packed with feeling, his rippling acoustic guitar notes feel like a warm hand gently reaching out to pull the listener safely on board with him. Kate Jone’s backing vocal adds an extra touch of emotional layering with this second vocal texture.
“Spare Change” begins with a story about learning to swim for the first time during an emergency of falling off a boat. This sense of sink or swim on your own becomes a metaphor for a person who is overlooked by another. Allain’s forlorn vocal makes you envision his isolation from the person who takes him for granted. The acoustic and electric guitars weave the underlying emotion with brittle beauty and edgy self-restraint, making you feel his sense of being used only when he’s needed.
The chirpy, assertive up tempo number, “Crooked Show” features Allain’s winsome near-belt approach in an endearing and entertaining light. He needs to get things off his chest and he ventilates to a rollicking, bumpy beat.
“Trouble And Heartache” gets a boost, once again, from his friend Kate Jones on co-lead vocal. Allain’s midi-sequenced cello accompaniment turns this whole number into a moody reflection, and the way the vocalists take turns baring their souls makes for one fulsome, heart rending number.
“My Days With You” features some of Allain’s nimblest guitar picking on this CD. He creates a feisty melodic backbone for his earthy, gritty vocal to swing and sway over. It’s his contrasts of flowing vocal phrase over sudden, spiky guitar notes that give weight here.
“Corner” features more of Allain’s nifty guitar work. He has ear catching chords shuffling coolly around. His voice gets feistier over his crackling guitars, almost shout-singing, and the song tackles his urgent need to find some urgency in his life.
“Dirty Little Town” is a quaint ditty about the secret sins of a small town. Allain plucks the melody at his own sweet time and the gentle unfurl is quite welcoming. His gritty chords etch themselves in the listener’s imagination, and his flinty vocal resonates with heart, soul, earnestness, allowing him to connect with his listeners on a deeply personal level.
“If Only (I Had Know)” is another to feature the silky timbre of co-lead vocalist Kate Jones. She makes this appearance as winsome as her previous ones. Her lovely lace of a voice creates the perfect contrast to Allain’s steely vocal. Allain’s acoustic guitar notes go on like a seamless work of art, those brittle notes each hitting their emotional target in their persistent tone. You don’t ever want this song to end.
“See No Evil” features longtime Rhode Island musician Bill Pratt who shows up to offer his mandolin and dobra picking skills, augmenting Allan’s impeccably clean, wholesome style. Both players flesh out this tune with vibrant melodic meaningfulness. Guitarist, Brian Menisci, chimes in with his icy cool electric edginess. After they weave this electric-acoustic texture, Allain offers another of his haunting vocals, the kind that echo in your imagination when you can really feel, in his voice, the man behind his lyrics.
Allain climbs up a mountain of hearty guitar chords on “To Love” while he and Jones take turns singing on this deep, moody reflection on a struggling relationship. Both singers sound anxious and angsty listing their gripes over a dark, sonorous, cello melody. It all comes together in a thickly woven cloth of thematic meaning: lonesome people baring their souls to one another inside the cold vacuum of a loveless home. It shows that there can still be beauty in the artistic rendering even when the topic is entirely sad.
Allain closes out with his technically challenging “Nocturne no 1,” a dark cry in the wilderness complete with an interval of crisp, forlorn acoustic guitar notes forming their intricate expression of pain. This tune eventually runs into some eerie, well-produced sound effects that make me wonder if Allain grew up listening to Pink Floyd before he caught the chill vibe and became an acoustic solo singer-songwriter act.
Steve Allain creates vibrant acoustic sounds and vocals and plunges into matters of the heart with courage and sincerity on this new CD, Thirteen.
agree!!!