PETER JAMES MILLSON –
SWEET THE LOVE THAT MEETS RETURN
2014 – Self
Released
Peter James Millson is an acclaimed English photographer who travelled the world photographing his musical heroes and even has six of his portraits, one of which is the late great Bert Jansch, in the National Portrait Gallery. Fairly obviously all of those hours spent in the company of great musicians has awoken a latent musical talent because gentle though this, his debut, recording is, it is also a work that requires a large slice of talent to accomplish successfully, something that he has managed beautifully with the help of Danny George Wilson, of Danny and the Champions of the World fame, who carried out production duties. He actually said that Danny prevented him from sweetening things too much, something he should be extremely grateful for because if Peter had prevailed the album could have got lost with a whole lot of bland pop music, but there is just enough of a crunch to proceedings to lift the album way above the mundane. In fact there is a highly original thread that runs through the whole album. It is not something you can put your finger on but by the end of the first listen it is difficult to compare this talented first timer with anyone else. No doubt his style was chiseled and smoothed off regularly by the hundreds of pub and club gigs that he has played in the south west of England and a myriad of influences.
The album itself can be filed as country music albeit with a frequent and unusual edginess in the instrumentation, but there is also a gentle pastoral folksiness that blends perfectly, ensuring that defining the generic links is fraught with problems! His gently melodic vocals have a lovely smooth texture but never get near to ‘twee’ thanks to the strength of his songs and the mainly country music instrumentation. This is certainly country music and whilst it is a generic field that is often, but not always, melody based, this album has tremendously strong melodies on every song, making it a recording that gradually inveigles itself into the consciousness of the listener and stays there!
I Remember has a nice attacking intro that gets the album underway on an easy going mid tempo moody ballad with an excellent production and instrumentation and the lovely steel guitar pulling the country elements together on a powerful reflection on brotherly love. This is followed by I Did Things I Shouldn’t Have Done with a lovely chiming electric guitar and steel on a gentle song of reflections on mistakes made in the past, giving the tale an atmosphere that is slow and regretful, but with the harmony vocal on the chorus giving the song a lift. There is a nice deep twangy guitar and steel on Broken Hearts, a song that creates a similar atmosphere to the Matthews Southern Comfort of four decades ago, in fact much of this often mellow album has that same feeling to it. The song has a lovely warm and comforting sound, with incredible harmonies that evoke the ‘sunny southern California’ feel, although far from it lyrically. Red Leaves On The Cherry Tree is an unusual song with it’s electric guitar and steel guitar blending to give the song an almost otherworldly feel with a little psychedelic texturing, on a tale that bemoans the demands of modern day life. The album closer Everybody Knows is a real beauty with its slow, mellow moodiness and tremendous, melodic guitar playing allied to sax and steel adding more atmosphere on a song that often has an improvised jazziness to it.
In many ways the album could be described with the dreaded phrase ‘soft rock’ or ‘AOR’ but how it manages to avoid this is not only in the lyrics, although surely this would be enough, but by the varied textures and the simple but personal tales, allied to Danny Wilson’s production that beautifully blends a sense of drama and deep emotion into Peter’s often poetic songs. A gorgeous album that will slowly reveal more depth with repeated listening sessions. Something I for one won’t find any difficulty in doing.
http://peterjamesmillson.com/
Peter James Millson is an acclaimed English photographer who travelled the world photographing his musical heroes and even has six of his portraits, one of which is the late great Bert Jansch, in the National Portrait Gallery. Fairly obviously all of those hours spent in the company of great musicians has awoken a latent musical talent because gentle though this, his debut, recording is, it is also a work that requires a large slice of talent to accomplish successfully, something that he has managed beautifully with the help of Danny George Wilson, of Danny and the Champions of the World fame, who carried out production duties. He actually said that Danny prevented him from sweetening things too much, something he should be extremely grateful for because if Peter had prevailed the album could have got lost with a whole lot of bland pop music, but there is just enough of a crunch to proceedings to lift the album way above the mundane. In fact there is a highly original thread that runs through the whole album. It is not something you can put your finger on but by the end of the first listen it is difficult to compare this talented first timer with anyone else. No doubt his style was chiseled and smoothed off regularly by the hundreds of pub and club gigs that he has played in the south west of England and a myriad of influences.
The album itself can be filed as country music albeit with a frequent and unusual edginess in the instrumentation, but there is also a gentle pastoral folksiness that blends perfectly, ensuring that defining the generic links is fraught with problems! His gently melodic vocals have a lovely smooth texture but never get near to ‘twee’ thanks to the strength of his songs and the mainly country music instrumentation. This is certainly country music and whilst it is a generic field that is often, but not always, melody based, this album has tremendously strong melodies on every song, making it a recording that gradually inveigles itself into the consciousness of the listener and stays there!
I Remember has a nice attacking intro that gets the album underway on an easy going mid tempo moody ballad with an excellent production and instrumentation and the lovely steel guitar pulling the country elements together on a powerful reflection on brotherly love. This is followed by I Did Things I Shouldn’t Have Done with a lovely chiming electric guitar and steel on a gentle song of reflections on mistakes made in the past, giving the tale an atmosphere that is slow and regretful, but with the harmony vocal on the chorus giving the song a lift. There is a nice deep twangy guitar and steel on Broken Hearts, a song that creates a similar atmosphere to the Matthews Southern Comfort of four decades ago, in fact much of this often mellow album has that same feeling to it. The song has a lovely warm and comforting sound, with incredible harmonies that evoke the ‘sunny southern California’ feel, although far from it lyrically. Red Leaves On The Cherry Tree is an unusual song with it’s electric guitar and steel guitar blending to give the song an almost otherworldly feel with a little psychedelic texturing, on a tale that bemoans the demands of modern day life. The album closer Everybody Knows is a real beauty with its slow, mellow moodiness and tremendous, melodic guitar playing allied to sax and steel adding more atmosphere on a song that often has an improvised jazziness to it.
In many ways the album could be described with the dreaded phrase ‘soft rock’ or ‘AOR’ but how it manages to avoid this is not only in the lyrics, although surely this would be enough, but by the varied textures and the simple but personal tales, allied to Danny Wilson’s production that beautifully blends a sense of drama and deep emotion into Peter’s often poetic songs. A gorgeous album that will slowly reveal more depth with repeated listening sessions. Something I for one won’t find any difficulty in doing.
http://peterjamesmillson.com/