Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Album Review - Paul Dempsey Everything Is True

This review is part of the "Over Flow" Review Series. For various reasons these past reviews were not published anywhere else. I am tagging them as Overflow Reviews and may add some extra information after if needed but I will keep the ratings and reviews just as I originally wrote them. Enjoy:
 Paul Dempsey 
Everything is True
** and 1/2 out of *****

The successful Australian artist Paul Dempsey finally gets an American release for his 2009 album Everything is True, officially bringing his groomed voice to American shores.  This is Dempsey’s first foray into the solo world after fronting the Bush styled group Something For Kate and his songs on this collection have a distinct pop/rock vibe behind their singer/songwriter exterior. 

“Ramona Was A Waitress” is urgent, clicking along while lyrically shirking off constraints with the refrain, “I don’t need these arms anymore/I don’t need this heart, now to love/I don’t need these skin and bones, at all”.  Layers of vocals (all his) flutter on the delicate “Out The Airlock” and the wordplay gets accelerated in front of acoustic guitar strums during “Bird In A Basement”.  He pushes the energy in a Train adult-contemporary style with “Have You Fallen Out Of Love?” but then gets intriguingly twangy on the catchy disk closer “We’ll Never Work In This Town Again”.

If at times overly dramatic (or borderline sappy) the album is a fun waltz down Main Street.  Dempsey should deservedly find an audience, airplay and success this summer in the USA with Everything Is True.     
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RtBE Programing Note:  Well it has been a bit of time since my last post, Hurricane Irene and some major computer issues slowed my output (as has this new blogger.com web formatting) but things should be back on schedule now, forgive the delay.


Paul Dempsey's Everything Is True album is solid, if not particularly my style, but that is the fun things about reviewing this stuff, even though I may not personally listen to it all the time I hope to recognize talent, and Dempsey certainly has it.  It would not surprise me in the slightest to see his career skyrocket now that he has finally released this album in the States.

I mentioned "Main Street" in the review and if there was such a thing as FM radio still I think he would find a vast audience.  Here's hoping he still does in the fractured world of niche music in the year 2011.  Some songs for you to judge for yourselves:

"Ramona Was A Waitress"


"Have You Ever Fallen Out Of Love"

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