Fall is the perfect time of year to wallow in self-doubt and existential crisis. Gloomy weather and dying foliage make for an appropriate backdrop, which means all that remains is the perfect album to accompany it. Enter Layne Greene, who’s managed to bottle this experience with his latest album, Resolutions.
Although the album was recorded at The Farm in Port Howe, Nova Scotia, it could easily have been recorded in the depths of a tranquil forest. Greene plays with ambience and flourishes of sound to craft a dreamy veneer that layers every song on the album. His mellow voice and delicate guitar picking have all the sensibilities of pure folk. However, Greene does a lot of magic with keys that bring the songs to another plane entirely.
Though there’s a general sense of melancholy throughout the album, the opening track seems to set the core mood. “22 Blue” deals with the concept of hard times being made that much harder by the passing of time. There’s a dull sense of hope that things will get better, which is another major theme that Greene sings about.
This sense of transiting sadness, fittingly enough, is a recurring theme as the album goes on. Even when it’s not explicitly being sung about, it buries itself into the foundation. In “The Edge of Town”, it’s the uncertainty of leaving behind what you know for bigger things. In “Inflation”, it’s the hope that those bigger things even exist in the first place.
Greene breaks away at times from the gentle reflectiveness that he spends most of the album exploring. “August 31” has a building distortion in the chorus that adds a fun dynamic to an otherwise peaceful song. Meanwhile, the title track has a pumping heartbeat lacking from the bulk of the album. The changes of pace are never overbearing or out of place, but instead serve as small bursts of energy to keep us going.
The album makes its debut just in time to play it in the background of all your Halloween festivities. It might not be scary in a particularly obvious way, but if you think about it, is there really anything scarier than grappling with your own sense of self? Listen to this album and decide that for yourself.
Show Dates:
01.11.19 – Kingston, ON @ Musiikki