Album Review: Saint John Divine

Beautiful and at times haunting in the same way Elliott Smith’s voice is haunting, there’s a cinematic quality to SJD’s newest album. Saint John Divine’s palette is subtle shades of sadness on canvas woven from the full spectrum of human emotion. You could call it melancholic, but that’d only be telling half the story. There are hints of hope poking through the paint here. Contentment and a speck or two of frivolity even.

A mellow, near acoustic affair, backed up by a band and female vocals, thisis a collection of songs, and I don’t say this lightly, that stand up next to Dobbyn, Finn (any of the Finns) and Neil Young, being cut from the same wood.  

It’s a style few aspire to these days. They’re songs that reinforce and illustrate the voice can be used as an instrument and as a surrogate guitar solo, all without the use of the obnoxious sound of Autotune. These are songs that aren’t out fighting the Loudness War, but respect the light/dark and driven/subdued dichotomies. There’s not much out there like this these days, but that helps spotlight a great album like Saint John Divine.

It’s not just the music that’s captivated me. SJD is a poetic lyricist; insightful, descriptive, occasionally esoteric, and as shown in Invisible Man occasionally tongue-in-cheek.

This is an art piece as much as it is a record. You can tell a lot of care and a lot of reverence for the music has gone into Saint John Divine. The talent was already there, naturally perhaps. The guy behind SJD is a born musician.

But plenty of people with talent are prone to blatting out a track in an hour then happily releasing it as is. There isn’t much to tracks like that, and the repeat listens aren’t as rewarding as listening to a multi-textured album like this one, which is obviously carefully composed and orchestrated.

The standout track for me was Unplugged. Outside on this cold autumn morning, the music in my ears, I can feel it rising through the turbulent atmosphere, ebbing and flowing with the waves on the horizon where space starts and the earth ends. The song builds up then hovers without the sonic clatter usually associated with a songs peak.

Saint John Divine is in store now, and available from the SJD bandcamp (http://sjdnz.bandcamp.com/).