Skip to main content

Rhett Repko - About Last Night (2017)




Written by Jay Snyder, posted by blog admin

Rhett Repko’s debut offering About Last Night a wonderful introduction to the singer/guitarist’s lush world of sound where pop meets rock and marries happily ever after.  Despite a couple of slightly awkward moments, Repko’s sound is fully-formed and in control of delivery, songwriting and texture in a way that renders each jam catchy and complete. 

“Were You Ever Really Mine?” starts things off, using acoustic guitar as the base and allowing Repko’s gliding vocals to melt like butter over bluesy bass lines, thumping percussion and a groovy, sonic guitar workout.  It’s not so tough as to deserve the label “hard rock” but it’s above cut and dry “pop” by a few millions miles.  This natural, organic flow keeps the EP afloat and consistently engaging; well-worth the listener’s time and energy to explore its depths.  “She loves me” and “On the Run” cull a lot of influence from country (primarily) and blues/folk (secondarily) in terms of the 4/4 rhythm figures and juicy bits of amplified guitar riffing but Rhett’s smooth voice and locked-on acoustic melodies put the songwriting in a more spacious realm; favoring brains over pure brawn.  “Inside of Me” is completely out of left field, but not if you check out Repko’s bio.  He’s a big Beatles fan and here he takes their scraggly psychedelic rock shades and decks out the chassis with modern pop flair.  It’s the most retro sounding track on the EP, although it avoids the trendy throwback syndrome that too many artists now use as their meal-ticket.  “About Last Night” and “Bye Bye Baby” are the album’s two balladic moments; the former being the stronger of the two thanks to mountainous vocal melodies that are always ascending and a lush string section grafted onto the choruses for epic intentions that are not only met but exceeded. 

Though a couple of the songs would be even more awesome with clearer chorus hooks (really only 2 and they are still great overall), the majority of this EP showcases a songwriter finding, developing and pushing his gift to the limit.  We are going to be hearing some exciting things from Rhett Repko in the future.  This EP is a fantastic start and spotlights a singer/songwriter elevating a genre of music that’s long since fallen into a musical wasteland.  He’s not afraid to invigorate pop with gutsy rock and bravado, enough to please the rock n’ roll purists that like their pop to walk the more aggressive side of the tracks. 

Comments

  1. Hi Jay!

    Thank you for the amazing review. Much appreciation and love!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Note Graffiti - Volume II: Without Nothing I'm You (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://blacknotegraffiti.com/ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BlackNoteGraffiti TWITTER: https://twitter.com/blacknotegraffi Written by Raymond Burris, posted by blog admin The second full length release from Ann Arbor’s Black Note Graffiti, Volume 2: Without Nothing I’m You, is an eleven song collection that positions this (then) four piece to rise several more notches in the world of indie rock. The band, furthermore, crackles with the potential to take their act far outside the warm but relatively narrow confines of the indie scene. Rock and its musical progeny may swim upstream commercially in our modern music world, but what that means is that the limited room for viable acts culls the fat off the genre and those who boast marquee status truly deserve it. The band’s talents are considerable – musically, vocally, and lyrically. The growth they’ve exhibited since their 2013 debut is surely the result of the inherent talent they’re dealing with, but it

Joshua Ketchmark - Under Plastic Stars (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://www.joshuaketchmark.com/ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/josh.ketchmark Written by Jay Snyder, posted by blog admin From the opening, gentle strum the heart-warming, tumbleweed kicking love song, “We Were Everything” and culminating in the rhythmically pulsating, winding electric guitar leads and spitfire soul vocals of closer “The Great Unknown,” it’s clear that Joshua Ketchmark has arrived.   Hailing from his humble beginnings in Peoria, Illinois and eventually carving a path to every big-time music city in the USA (LA just to name one of many places), Ketchmark is now twelve releases strong in a music career that spans too many genres to count.   Though he primarily operates in old school folk, country, pop and r & b, he also branches out into rock, blues and delicate balladry whenever the mood strikes him.    After the fiery lead-in of “We Were Everything,” Joshua switches into ballad mode with quiet acoustic guitar, deeply mixed and lay

Yam Haus - Stargazer (2018)

OFFICIAL : http://www.yamhaus.com/ FACEBOOK: https://www. facebook.com/yamhaus TWITTER: https://twitter.com/YAMHAUSBand Written by Raymond Burris, posted by blog admin Yam Haus’ debut album Stargazer begins in rousing fashion. The title song opens the album with a short flurry of synthesizer sounds before shifting into stomping guitar and drum driven verses. The slashing guitar work gives the song a great deal of bounce while the drumming contrasts that with straight forward power and Lars Pruitt’s smooth, gliding vocal tone provides the finishing touch for the track. The lyrics don’t remake the wheel or aspire to poetic excellence, but they are a cut above typical fare in this style. “West Coast” has a much more retro slant than the title song, definitely recalling the 1980’s moreso than recent history, but it never looks back to that music too reverentially. The production distinguishes this song, like it does the album across the board, and has a physically engag