Kent Heckaman - Songs from Those Days (2008)
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
How I Feel About It *♥
This album is not for those who are in a good mood, or have had a great deal of coffee or other stimulants. It’s a study in misery, regret and remorse. It’s beautifully wrought melancholy and it deals very much with adult issues. If you are a teenybopper (or suspect that I might think you are a teenybopper) then don’t get this album.
If, on the other hand, you have just broken up with your wife or if someone in your family has passed, or if you’re feeling guilty about raising a child in an increasingly inhospitable world, then this album is for you. There isn’t a single upbeat song on the album; everything is paced slowly as if the person who wrote it is has a permanent hangover and suffers if things move too quickly or suddenly.
This album has the power to drag you down. Heckaman isn’t remotely interested in pandering to you. His lyrics are very direct and one has to wonder if he has lapsed into cynicism or worse…misanthropy. Clearly he’s tried many, many times to make healthy relationships, but they’re not panning out. I generally stay away from psychoanalysis in reviews, but this time I think it’s relevant. If Heckaman is not depressed, his work sure sounds like it–but if you don’t mind going through someone’s mind that is at its wit’s end with the rest of the world, then this album will reward you at almost every turn: Songs from Those Days is not for the faint of heart.
What I Think About It *
Heckaman employs about four different singers, all of them female, and his arrangements are keyboard heavy, but are nicely complimented by a cast of musicians which include acoustic guitar players, an upright bass player and a variety of drummers. The singers, without exception, do not over-emote. There isn’t any melodrama here and that’s a significant fact as it would be very easy to do with this music. It’s hard for me to tell if this was a direction from Heckaman or if it was a coincidence. On some of the songs, I have to wonder if the singers are a little too restrained, because on those few songs where they do open up more, the difference is glaring. For instance, the first song Lost in the Aspens with You, is sung by Kate Myers and she puts very little inflection into her voice. It suggests that the character in the song is very distant from the listener, lost and wandering in her own thoughts. But Kate also sings I’ve Seen that Movie Too, an Elton John/Bernie Taupin number, which for my part, is hands-down the best song on the album. (The only complaint I have about it is that it might be too far up Nora Jones bum.) Regardless, Myers sings with a great deal more warmth and feeling in it and it stands out from the other songs in which the singers sound emotionally distant. (Heather Horton sings Chasing Rainbows and that song is an example of one of the warmer vocal performances.) This distance, imposed or otherwise, creates and maintains an illusion that the writer is supremely foggy, and wandering around in a land of moss and dew-dripping spider webs. It’s this effect which makes sitting in front of a fire place on a rainy Sunday morning while listening to Heckaman such a cathartic event.
Heckaman’s keyboards are well played and well produced. If it wasn’t for the vocals and the rest of the instruments, one might think this was a Windham Hill production from the eighties. The piano has a slightly new-agey feel and never overpowers the songs. Heckaman layers keyboard sounds in back of the piano with taste and elegance. I especially like the Blade Runner/Vangelis sound in back of Songs from Those Days. The other instrumentalists are solid players not interested in beating you over the head with their skill. In addition to those players mentioned above, there are some string players which give the album a welcome orchestral sound. Though it’s not directly related to the music, it’s worth mentioning the packaging for this album: Clarissa Yvette Du Bois took some lovely photographs for the multi-panel fold-out produced by NorwestDesigns. Heckaman includes A Late Walk by Robert Frost on one of the panels, a pleasant poem and an appropriate final touch.
I recommend this album to anyone who thinks. Even if you’re in a particularly good, happy place right now, eventually you’ll be down and this album will be waiting for you. If you’re a listener who believes that thinking about music is a waste of time, then don’t get this disk. It would be wasted on you. While I keep a file of everything that is sent to Guaranteed Reviews, I don’t usually keep the music I review in my personal rotation–but I’ll be doing exactly that with Kent Heckaman’s, Songs from Those Days.
Steve Perry (no relation)
June 10, 2008