Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 4/5 Released: October 25, 2005 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
Toronto singer/songwriter Nathan Lawr shines with his sophomore release Secret Carpentry. The album is short, only nine songs long, leaving little room for error, but Lawr doesn’t miss a step. Contrast between songs is spot on, ranging from up beat band numbers to one man demonstrations, where armed only with a guitar or a piano Lawr is still captivating.
Secret Carpentry is also a testament to musical styles past. The 80’s popish ‘Bring your Sting’ is a fun and uplifting look into the not so distant past, while the lyrically eerie ‘Holder of the Thread’ presents itself in the style of a beautiful 50’s love song but is anything but with lyrics like “No hands hold me under water, drown me in the river / or throw me to the wolves / can’t you see that I’ve been falling ‘cause I want to / drowning ‘cause I need to be happy in the dark.â€
Lawr keeps the album simple, never extravagant and always well thought out. He opts, on most tracks, to play the majority of instruments himself, relying on his band ‘The Minotaurs’ sparingly and the maturity of the music speaks as proof to the fact that this man is only getting started.
