There’s a moment during Turning Tides, the new EP out today from Blake Brown & The American Dust Choir, where the record shifts from something simply coming out of the speakers into something of a familiar and friendly companion. It happens at some point during standout single “Hanging By A Wire”, when the Denver singer/songwriter seems to stop singing at the listener and instead takes a seat next to them.
Brown’s lyricisms have always been at the heart of his work, coating his lived-in reflections and intimate observations with the type of roots and Americana that appeals far beyond the genre, something similar to those early Pela singles of the mid 2000s. And that’s wildly on display here on Turning Tides, billed as being “about love, partnership, searching for inner strength, dreams, and ultimately desiring to spread positive message.” And what augments Brown’s aim here is that he’s the type of songwriter who’s able to turn his own experiences into something wholly relatable across a spectrum of listenership.
Turning Tides is a spacious, yet warm, EP that feels like a personal moral compass (see closing track “Life Lines”) in all of our quests for compassion in a world that exhibits less and less of it each day. We all need companionship in 2019; for times when we’re wrong, times when we’re right, and especially times when we’re just not sure at all where we stand. And Blake Brown seems to understands this all too well, as he’s navigating the world right along side us.