There’s no way any bright, fresh mind of rock n’ roll songwriting can do to avoid starring at the past and quoting from it. Just look at the house the great musicians of old have managed to build! And, just look at how it seems the world is starting to drive by that house and never come in.
Eric Kehoe’s mission on his latest EP “Indications” is to extract all the ingredients that were part of the magic recipe of his predecessors and reassemble them into something modern, something that is a comment on the world in which he’s living.
The EP starts with the swirling new-age hippieisms of “Peace Drones.” It’s a mighty impressive sound that begins with lo-fi acoustic guitars and shifts seamlessly into a waterfall of modern psychedelia. It’s also a poignant lyric. The 1960s songwriters had their own war news to contend with. Sadly, we have ours.
It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Kehoe is determined to take listeners on a trip to his impressive record collection. “Last Time” echoes the fun-loving, guitar-first sounds of the 1970s. Stonesy riffs are placated by falsetto vocals in a hook that may well have you whistling along.
The falsetto is kept for “King of Feeling,” but this time, Eric Kehoe has moved even further in time. This is a funky pop track designed for the modern charts. It’s an exercise in danceable grooves and melancholy, a bittersweet dance floor love song.
The kitchen-sink approach is also evident in the slow number “Sol Power,” a track that recalls Elton John singles and 1970s soft-pop. An expressive lead guitar adds flavour to this stadium-sized power ballad.
“Three Bakers” closes off the EP with the same kind of soulfulness that Kehoe has revealed throughout the album. Here, the songwriter brings, more than anywhere else on the release, channels the folk-rock songwriters of the late 1960s, with both their worries and hopefulness.
“Indications” is self-recorded and self-produced. Clearly, Eric Kehoe’s passion for retro sounds and old-fashioned songwriting is an earnest one. The five-song set reveals an artist intimately acquainted with many of the sounds and styles from the Golden Age of Pop and Rock and one hopeful that a new one may be just on the horizon.
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