Brent Daniels - Every Road Has a Turn
The first album from Brent Daniels,
Every Road Has a Turn, has a title reflective of his personal journey to this
point. His early passion for music short-circuited for a few years while he
pursued an alternative career as an electrician, but the desire to sing and
perform couldn’t be repressed forever. Daniels sounds like a man finally
released to chase down his dreams on a lot of these songs. He sings with such
unrestrained enthusiasm, always managing to temper it with a generous dose of
technique, that it isn’t difficult to imagine this is the experience of a
lifetime so far for the talented young performer. His voice is the stuff
careers are built from. It isn’t enough to just be able to hit the notes, you
have to own the material and put something of yourself into it that no one else
could and make the audience feel that experience. Brent Daniels does that on
this album.
“My First Friday Night” seems full of
possibility based on title alone and the song’s lyric keeps listeners in a
semi-state of suspense until it reveals its true subject early on. It’s
musically stylish and hints of a classic country sound keep coming through via
the structure and the song takes a number of very nice turns as it progresses.
There’s no inklings of classic country peeking through the song “My Truck’s
Bigger than Your Truck” and the shift in sound and approach is so massive that
some of Daniels’ audience might feel the sting of whiplash. It isn’t a song
that pretends to be high art – instead, it’s pure youthful exuberance and
quintessentially American. There’s some humor tossed in for good measure
reminding us to never take this tune very seriously. “Party at the End of the
Road” shares a similar spirit, obviously, but it doesn’t lay on the rock
elements quite as heavily as what we heard on the last song. Despite the
typical first class musical accompaniment, this plays up the same carefree
attitude heard in “My Truck’s Bigger than Your Truck” with an even stronger
chorus. “Love You Down” has some low-key rock energy that Daniels and his band
mates cut loose with at crucial points during the recording.
“Everything About You” is one of the
album’s finest musical moments thanks to the great playing during the chorus
and how they escalate it perfectly into another memorable refrain. The pop
sensibility on this album never compromises its country spirit however; Daniels
has some less than obvious influences and they certainly aren’t exclusive
pulled from the rock and pop world. The delicate acoustic structure of “Hold
On” doesn’t mean that Daniels and his fellow musicians aren’t allowed to
marshal the same energies, they just get turned to a much different effect
here. His singing really goes deeply into the track and it’s easy to hear his
engagement with every word. Brent Daniels wraps up Every Road Has a Turn with
another riff on classic country songwriting with the song “I’ve Been Gone” and
it reaffirms his best points as a performing artist. He shows the same
consistent talent for getting inside a song and filling it with his own
personality and slight smirks snaking through on certain lines attests to his
emotive skills for a final time. Anyone who hears this album and starts
following Brent Daniels is smart and lucky. You’re coming in on the ground
floor of something special.
9 out of 10 stars
William Elgin
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