There is definitely a short list of artists who can consistently prick our ears up at the very mention of a nearby show, let alone a single, an upcoming tour and an impending album. Adam Baldwin is most certainly one of those artists. Baldwin’s new single, “Salvation,” heralds a whole wave of giddiness and everything else yet to come.
Adam Baldwin might just be Dartmouth, Nova Scotia’s answer to The Boss. He’s long been that guy going to work on stage and causing double-takes for wearing his roughshod soul on his sleeve. Spiritually, it feels like Baldwin should have been collecting a pension for a few years, splitting the difference with his actual age and instead receives dividends in the form of a gritty gravitas.
As a regular member of Matt Mays‘ band (and Matt Mays has an AMAZING band), we just wait on those double-billing live shows. Now, nearly three years since the release of Baldwin‘s debut album, No Telling When (Precisely Nineteen Eighty-Five), our patience was getting a bit long in the tooth. Now, with the release of “Salvation,” we know there’s hope we know there’s hope on the horizon.
With a backbone that reverberates through the first opening moments of “Salvation” and deep into its bassline, the track sits somewhere between Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” and the raw edge of July Talk. It’s the rock-and-roll-powered dance number we’ve been waiting for, with sinful undertones.
Where we might assume salvation would come in the form of blissful release, according to Baldwin it’s more like a hard slap in the face.
“I was attending twelve step meetings in the basement of a church in the south end of Halifax,” explains Baldwin. “One was held a few hours before I had to go to work singing songs at whatever bar, around the various substances I was desperate to avoid. This is where the religious imagery comes from. I’m not a religious man, but I was trying to find a god of any sort to save me from myself. I wrote the words in my head during one meeting just by looking at the old cross-stitches hanging crookedly around the room, and from listening to the harshest truths I’ve ever heard, delivered by some of the most unassuming folks I’d ever met. Truth is cold. It’s uncomfortable, it’s harsh. That basement was cold. Damn cold.”
We expect that we’ll see No Rest for the Wicked, the new six song EP from Baldwin sometime this Spring, but in the leadup we’ll have a whole lot of shows we can take in.
Tour Dates:
01.28.19 – Berwick, NS @ The Union Street
01.29.19 – Berwick, NS @ The Union Street
01.30.19 – Berwick, NS @ The Union Street
02.01.19 – Miramichi, NB @ The Vogue
02.02.19 – Truro, NS @ Marigold Cultural Centre
03.03.19 – Truro, NS @ Marigold Cultural Centre
02.07.19 – Paris, ON @ Dominion Telegraph
02.08.19 – Paris, ON @ Dominion Telegraph
02.09.19 – Bayfield, ON @ Bayfield Town Hall
02.10.19 – Hamilton, ON @ Hamilton Public Library
02.11.19 – Bayfield, ON @ Bayfield Town Hall
02.14.19 – Huntsville, ON @ Algonquin Theatre
02.15.19 – Peterborough, ON @ Market Hall
02.16.19 – Burnstown, ON @ Neat Cafe
02.17.19 – Burnstown, ON @ Neat Cafe
02.20.19 – Calgary, AB @ The Odyssey at SAIT
02.21.19 – Edmonton, AB @ Have Mercy
06.29.19 – Sydney, NS @ Breton Brewing Beer & Music Festival