One of the most uplifting shows #TEAMw21 witnessed last year was Julian Taylor's appearance at The Water Rats. He seamlessly traversed a number of styles with the utmost of ease, and time spent with him and his UK assembled band felt truly special. The good news is that he will be back this summer and with a new album, of which this new single "Weighing Down" is the first release.
That night in London saw Julian display an inner calmness and it is this ambience that is on display here. Musically there is very little here yet with such a simple sound everything has to play it's part perfectly. This is overtly Americana, there's an acoustic guitar, a pedal steel that adds so much character to the track it all but sings, some percussion and in the final moments a sumptuous organ sound.
The intro is a simple acoustic guitar refrain while the pedal steel acts
"Brick and mortar
As solid as the ground
But you’re carrying too much
And slowly breaking down
Cannon fodder
And looking to escape
The heaviness of all of your mistakes"
Julian has a wonderful timbre and the melody of that final line bounces along with a wonderful sense of rhythm, there's a lot of words to squeeze, in yet Julian calmly delivers them totally unhurried. The essence of that first verse is that no matter how strong you are.
The chorus acts as a call to not be so self critical - give yourself a break. Julian marvelously extends the word "down" in the most soothing of ways
"Weighing down, don’t let it weigh you down
You’ve been so hard on yourself
It’s time to let things soften now"
The second verse sees the percussion provide a stronger back beat, the pedal steel is all but a backing vocalist it is that prominent and telling with its contributions. The organ makes an appearance but it is almost buried in the mix - it will rise to prominence later in the track.
Julian's positive outlook sings through in this verses final lines, find joy in the positives rather than dwell on the negatives.
"You wish you weren’t, but you’re falling down again
It’s been a hard road full of lessons
Feeling hungry and trapped in solitude
The way that we choose to look at things is an attitude
Looking at the skyline tonight I choose gratitude"
A second voice appears on the second chorus tracking Julian's vocal adding to the overall atmosphere.
The cover showing telephone poles, maybe a metaphor for communicating - for the only way out of this state is normally to talk to someone or maybe to listen to someone giving advice like Julian is here.
The final chorus and outro sees the organ sound become more prominent, it adds a rich warm texture to the overall sound and once you know it is there you cannot help but listen on repeat to find out where it originally appears.
This is a fine opening statement of intent for the new album "Pathways", which will be released September 27 and before then we will have at least three more singles and a batch of summer dates at the back of August to look forward to - keep an eye out you will not want to miss this man.