JBM : Not Even In July

<span style="font-style: normal"><img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/jbmnoteveninjuly.jpg" alt=" " />JBM has made a nice start, and shows some promise, but needs to do more.</span> ...
5.9 Partisan
2010 

JBM : Not Even In July There are too many sad alt-folk singer/songwriter solo troubadours out there today.  It seems like you can’t swing a cat without hitting someone baring their soul over their acoustic guitar.  It seems like all you need to have homespun twang is to not be from New York or L.A. (though they usually go to one of the two in order to ‘make it’).  Elvis Perkins (QRO live review) begat Bon Iver (QRO photos, opening for Elvis Perkins) begat Tallest Man on Earth (QRO photos) begat Nathaniel Rateliff  Another entry in this seemingly limitless supply is someone who’s opened for most of the above is Jesse Marchant, a.k.a. JBM.  And while he hardly reinvents this sound or varies things up, he can deliver on debut Not Even In July.

The title to the record comes not from "July on Sound" (or even the following "Friends for Fireworks"), but later piece "In a Different Time", and on that standout piece he gets fully in touch with the sad, world-weary troubadour persona.  However, no other piece quite matches the depth to JBM’s voice as on "Time".  Still, the stripped solo work of "Cleo’s Song", "Going Back Home" and "From Me to You to You to Me" evoke early Band of Horses (QRO live review), a sweeter alt-country strum comes thanks to "Ambitions & War", a little darker – and with piano – on "Sound", and beat beneath slow loss with "Fireworks".

There’s nothing wrong with final pair "Red October" or "Swallowing Daggers", but by the end of July, the pieces drag out the days of a baseball season for a team mired in last place.  JBM has made a nice start, and shows some promise, but needs to do more.  Get a band, perhaps?…

MP3 Stream: "In a Different Time"

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