musooklub: All The Little Lights

Eight or nine years ago, when my wife and I were living in London, we went to see Australian artist Lior. His warm-up act was British folk rock group Passenger. I can't recall anything from that gig, but it's fair to assume I enjoyed the warm-up act because for the past eight or nine years I've been subscribed to the Passenger mailing list. It's also fair to assume I didn't enjoy it that much because I'm yet to open any of the emails.

Fast forward to the present - where going to gigs is a distant child-squashed memory - I recently rediscovered my old mailing list friend Michael David Rosenberg...wait, what? It turns out when Passenger disbanded in 2009 (something I would know if I ever read their newsletter) their lead singer and song writer Michael David Rosenberg decided to keep the Passenger stage name. I suppose if you're the only talent in the band then that's something you're quite entitled to do. If he'd been planning ahead he might have gone the way of Ben Folds, where dropping the "Five" is a really easy transition to make, but the "Michael David Rosenberg Five" really doesn't have the same ring to it. Maybe "Passenger" was his passive-aggressive message to the other members. In any case, Passenger is now the stage name of a one-man-folk-rock-band.

Which reminds me, the new Ben Folds album just dropped and I'm calling dibs. Yes you can do that, it's totally a rule. Raman has gone all whacky for the next round with his High Fidelity Top Five Albums thing, but when I'm once again free to post whatever I want, Ben Folds is my man. End digression.

Released in 2012, All The Little Lights is Passenger's fourth studio album. I haven't really listened to any of his other albums so I don't know how it compares, but I'm looking forward to spending some time with them. The album's second song Let Her Go was wildly successful, but my favourite is the title track All The Little Lights, equal parts sad and hopeful.

4.5 out of 5.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/enecq55xgjnol19/All%20The%20Little%20Lights%20-%20Passenger.zip?dl=0

4 comments:

UnknownSeptember 19, 2015 at 3:36 AM
I enjoyed it, but not very much :-(

3/5 from me.
LolobouSeptember 29, 2015 at 7:56 AM
Liked it and I did not know him at all! Thanks for the discovery
Especially a few songs like Staring At The Stars and Patient Love
Rajiv SatyalSeptember 30, 2015 at 5:08 PM
As I told my wife, "You have to get past his voice." She didn't quite agree, saying that his voice reminded her of Death Cab for Cutie and other whiny music. ("Whiny" mine.)

I don't know how a man can sing like this... I stand behind my statement. Still, the music is so beautiful that I truly enjoyed this album. I of course had heard "Let It Go," which is a heartrending piece. And it had far more range than I anticipated.

3.5 stars. Spreadsheet duly updated.
WenOctober 2, 2015 at 8:50 AM
Though it was played to death on the radio, "Let Her Go" is still one of my favourite songs to come out that year. Beautiful music with some beautiful words.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

All The Little Lights - Passenger

4 comments: