The first thirty seconds count. I must be grabbed by something in the music in the first thirty seconds if the song crafter wants to hold my attention. When I popped in Ray Tarantino’s Recusant that happened, but not without a totally unexpected surprise (not all sunrises are good ones). Ray has a quality to his voice that says - hey! I am my own, I am worthy of at least one honest listen, so I gave it to him. But after the 30 second point the album’s title track took a wildly unsuspected turn. Some strange bending of time and space occurred and I suddenly found myself listening to what felt and sounded like Coldplay’s Speed for Sound. Hear me people - I never left Tarantino’s song (listen to it here). I actually looked at my iTunes to be certain I was not imagining things. Everyone in the studio turned and looked at me in disbelief. One of the guys even asked “who is covering the Coldplay tune?” Personally, I don’t think I could ever write a song with a melody this close to another song and call it my own.

Over all, I felt like the album is missing an identity. Great themes and musical concepts are present, but they never develop into something that would make the listener say, “this is Ray’s stuff and I just love it because it is Ray.” I wanted to like just about every tune on the album but they were missing that grit and/or edge expected in this genre. As I listened I realized that the grit and identity were missing due largely to the various production elements. Sometimes, for example, the guitars were not tight enough and other times they were not raw enough. The vocals often didn’t have that BIG over the top sound that a well produced album will deliver and the mix need some “glue” to bring all of the various musical elements together.

All this being said, I really think Ray has one of those voices that could be a million dollar voice. It shifts between Greg Brown and (you guessed it) Chris Martin. There are may artists on which I would never wast a second listen. There is just no time to wast on bad music with so much great stuff “out there” today, but this in not the case with Ray. I would love to hear what he could do if teamed up with the right producer. Perhaps co-writing with another great songwriter who has an established sonic identity would help to give Ray the missing edge. I would even suggest giving both a seasoned producer and co-writing a try. Ray has that quality “something” in his voice and I am looking forward to seeing it develop as his sound develops. Unlike many other musicians, I would give Ray Tarantino’s voice a second try.

Artist: Ray Tarantino
Album: Recusant
Release Date: N/A
Our Rating: 4.5

Gregory is a musician and producer of the Hill Sessions.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Album Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.