The Traditionist, Season to Season

I love a good lyricist. Poets impress, but much of the time I find myself working at it to get a feeling or image from the words. Call me a simpleton, but that’s why when I first read of The Traditionist, which advertises influences the likes of Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel, I was expecting nothing more than gangly vocals over melodramatic lyrics. I wasn’t much interested, but I had a listen to a few tracks posted on MySpace, and became intrigued.

The Traditionist consists of Joey Barro and a guitar, and on Season to Season, he collaborated with longtime friend Tim Bluhm, of Mother Hips, who also helped produce. The arrangements, instrumentals, and sultry female vocals on select tracks are all very impressive. The only beef I really have is perhaps one unnecessary guitar solo, and a track or two that seems to have a hard time finding an ending. Overall, though, the disc is well-produced.

The album begins with “Shallow Winter’s Moon,” a haunting story that, for me, was about feeling lost but not without hope, and buried in the melody there is hope. Hope served up via warbled pulses of warm notes that progressively get brighter, to the bridge where percussion comes in. It’s a brilliant opening to a host of tracks that are very diverse, and if you didn’t know otherwise, might think they were scored for a film.

That advertised influence of Simon & Garfunkel hits you right in the face on the next track, and while I’m not a fan of tunes from either Simon or Garfunkel, I have to say that “A Sleep Be Told” is catchy. Not one of the best tracks, but if you can fight away the images of the Muppets parading behind Paul Simon in Central Park, the track will deliver a little seriousness. After these two tracks, you’ll have no idea where Barro is going to take you, and it’s best just to keep an open mind.

If you’re going to pick and choose tracks versus purchasing the lot, try “No Self Portrait” and “I Know My Ocean,” the former being a great lesson on the rhythmic effects of parallel prose. It projects imagery of Barro hunched over a piano with a bottle of bourbon in one hand while the other’s pounding the keys. With the latter, you can sober up with a toe-tappin’ song about togetherness. By the way, you’re in luck — you can pick up an MP3 of one of my top recommendations right now for free: http://www.betterlookingrecords.com/ thetraditionist/onesheet.php.

The sound of Season to Season can’t be pinned down to one genre. There are some country and western beats you could two-step to, and even a waltz and a polka, but don’t expect to see The Traditionist throwing out coozies to the crowd anytime soon. It would take up much more Webspace than I’m given to describe every track accurately, but gnaw on this — take Robert Earl Keen, Radiohead, and Paul Simon, put them in a rocket, and launch it to the next galaxy. If they return before killing each other, their collaborative effort would be The Traditionist.