There’s a refreshing amount of polish on Austin Eatman’s debut album, Broken Radio. Despite being relatively young, there’s a maturity to him as a writer and a musician that would suggest a lifetime of experience to anyone none the wiser.
The opening track, “Walking Paranoia,” is a decidedly tranquil song for the name it’s given. It has the steady pace of a sunny bike ride, with languid strings and Eatman’s clear, harmonic vocals mixing together into something warm and palatable. It’s a slightly different vibe from the more twang-oriented tracks that follow, but it’s a nice hook to the album all the same.
His time spent in pubs entertaining the Saint John public has allowed Eatman to expertly curate this tracklist. High energy songs like “Sweet Kate” and “Perpetual Fire” are sure to be crowd pleasers, the kind of rhythmic toe-tappers that are specifically designed to get an audience moving. Those kinds of tracks often run the risk of sounding generic, any one of them bleeding into another. Again, there’s just an extra level of polish on these tracks that set them apart from potential peers.
Eatman does tackle some pretty pessimistic subject matter, right up until the closing track. “Broken Radio” has some particularly cutting lines, like “call your mama better let her know, the life she granted ain’t nothing but a joke.” It’s feels painfully personal, and it’s only one of many on the album. The entirety of “The Spark” will make you feel like you’re going through a breakup for a relationship you were never in. He presents the pain and sadness in these tracks in a way that borders on apathetic.
Perhaps that’s what makes his work feel so relatable. He doesn’t deal with grand, tragic tales of loss. Even the more joyful songs don’t feel larger than life. Everything just feels very down to earth and, more importantly, real. There’s no dramatization for the sake of getting the point across here. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing in other cases, but in this case it really works in Eatman’s favour. It’s easy to connect with the points he’s trying to make because it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from a stranger – it feels like it’s coming from a friend. As far as debut albums go, that’s definitely a comforting first impression to make.
Show Dates:
02.08.20 – Saint John, NB @ Peppers Pub