Written
by Pamela Bellmore, posted by blog admin
There
are likely to be two dominant schools of thought regarding Joshua Ketchmark’s
Under Plastic Stars. The first will find Ketchmark’s twelve song collection to
be a remarkably unified work, both lyrically and musically, with nary a hole to
be seen in the track listing. Another point of view will likely peg Under
Plastic Stars as a remarkably promising work slightly marred by too many
similarities between songs and potentially benefitted by being pruned by a
couple of tracks or else varied with one or two uniformly uptempo numbers. I
side with the former. Ketchmark obviously wanted this to be an intimate affair
and the predominantly mid-tempo cast of the material reinforces listeners’
concentration on the material. You can’t say this about a lot of releases, but
the lyrics for Under Plastic Stars are important – even when they aren’t
reaching high for some storytelling peak, they are obviously cut from a
distinctly personal cloth and listeners will get a real sense of who Joshua
Ketchmark is by album’s conclusion.
I
particularly like the audaciousness of opening with the musically placid but
vocally and lyrically heartbroken “We Were Everything”. Ketchmark throws us,
from the first, into the emotional breach and his melodic talents as a
songwriter make it a distinctly, if improbable, memorable listening experience.
The acoustic guitar work is superb throughout the entire album, but this is one
of many high points for playing on Under Plastic Stars. “Every Mystery”, the
album’s second tune, is another track that does a superb job of mixing the
singer/songwriter mold of the material with an appealing commercial edge that
never overreaches. Some hints of Ketchmark’s more poetic side emerge here, but
it’s a romantic song, in essence, and Ketchmark delivers it with the emotion
such tracks demand.
“Let
It Rain” and “Lucky at Leavin’”, in tandem, make for one of the album’s
greatest peaks. The first is one of the more atmospheric performances on Under
Plastic Stars, but it never sounds unnecessarily stagy or straining to impress
listeners. I’m taken by how Ketchmark can use common turns of phrase like “let
it rain”, a common song title throughout popular music history, and make
something of his own from the familiar. “Lucky at Leavin’” is a beautifully
lyrical folk tune, in essence, adorned with some discreet electric guitar and
keyboard touches that flesh it out into something truly memorable. “Get Out
Alive” has a fatalistic air not common to the other eleven songs and a dollop
of blues coming through its arrangement while the late tune “Sweet Surrender” brings
piano into the mix with powerful emotional impact. Under Plastic Stars reveals
Ketchmark to be a truly talented figure and explains, in one fell swoop, why he’s
been such a sought out collaborator and sideman for so many important
performers and bands over the years.
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