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CD REVIEW: Sean Jackson - 'Salad Days'
By Steve Allat - 06/19/2005 - 05:00 PM EDT
Artist: Sean Jackson
Album: 'Salad Days'
CD Review:
Label: Independent Tracks: 11 Released: 2004 For Fans Of: Queens of the Stone Age, Radiohead, Foofighters, Jeff Buckley, Chris Cornell Fav Tracks: Head Exposed, Landmine, Mousetrap
Sean grabbed my attention right off the bat. The first track starts of nice and soft and then he turns on the amp, and let's her rip. Style to my ears. The vocals begin and just complement the hard music well. I look forward to a nice ride. This is Sean's show, as he wrote, arranged, produced and engineered the whole thing as well as playing the majority of the instruments on all tracks. It appears he's well schooled in all areas as the overall product is strong and balanced. What sets him apart are his songwriting and excellent vocals, reminiscent of no one in particular and very smoothly delivered. Most of the songs have an engaging quality about them, and on each song it's different. - a great hard riff, soaring vocals, a piano hook or simply the melody. Some of the snyth/piano sounds are a little dated instead of being progressive, and that's the only thing that I can hear holding the overall sound down.
For some reason, as the disc progresses, the songs loses a bit of strength and also the hard edge that I enjoyed at the beginning of the CD. Either a little reshuffle or the addition of some of that edge on later tracks would give the overall feel a little more consistency and a 'sound' to identify the whole set of songs with. It's great that Sean has such range, to be able to go from a piano based ballad to a hard rocker, but I would have enjoyed a bit more of the hard edge. It seems to suit him best.
Regardless of the song, however, Sean is consistently strong in melody & voice and his variety of talents shine through. A very very solid performance. Catchy songs that I can listen to repeatedly and appreciate.
Contact: Sean Website: Sean Jackson
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