Album Review: This First Day

For music, the context of its creation is a consistent, albeit variable, component. Colin Rock’s album This First Day is a collection of songs whose creation is very dependent on a specific motivation. The central element is that Rock wrote a song for his wife every Valentine’s Day from “1981 until the end of my world….” and the selection of songs on This First Day are steeped in love, grief and the examination of personal loss. An audiobook, Songs For Joss, is the companion piece for this album, or perhaps it’s the other way round. In any case, It’s an essential consideration, for while the mood and themes don’t become oppressive at any point, the background does add important weight.

An important consideration is that Colin Rock is a writer with a mature and experienced understanding of song writing craft, delivery and arrangement. These songs sit mainly in a mid-tempo country flavoured rock mode, with acoustic guitar and voice the central musical elements. Stylistically, this is an ideal match for the lyric approach and content, and the arrangements work to frame this with sensitivity and subtlety.

As to the lyrics, Colin Rock is an experienced writer so each of these songs is a vignette collectively documenting his life with wife Joss. Rock says, “There is a vague Valentine’s Day theme, although I wandered off course a bit.” While there isn’t anything as didactic as a story arc, the prevailing mood is the kind of pervasive-but-subtle- melancholy that you might expect. Even a relatively up-tempo moment like Bars and Steel Guitars is quite restrained, if not gentle, in its approach.

Given the stylistic and lyrical consistency, the overall structure of this collection is done with a deft storyteller’s hand. Opening track This First Day sets a comfortably upbeat opening, while The demo-style production of When I Was A Boy emphasises a move into ballad mode, in a more traditional country or bluegrass – even Celtic – style. The closing song A Little Bit Tired uses this same production approach, which adds a certain poignancy. Night Shift sits nicely as the centerpiece of this album, and it’s a standout track. The nifty key change in the chorus is cleverly done and the song has a genuine 3am feel to it, something that’s hard to quantify if it’s outside your experience other than to say, “if you know, you know.”

The songs on This First Day balance the poignant with the observational and uses solid songwriting craft and lyrical skill to deliver just the right level of emotional impact. It would be fair to say that while its heart is most certainly on its sleeve, the relative brevity of the overall collection enhances the poignancy of each song. It’s worth considering this in conjunction with another music release, Slow Drinking and the aforementioned audiobook release, Songs For Joss.