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RSSGavin DeGraw Returns to Wallow on Third Album
Mar 31
Music album review Comments Off
It was fitting that while listening to Gavin DeGraw’s third album Free, my media player kept lagging, creating gaps of silence during the songs. Sometimes, it was hard to tell where the gaps where created by the equipment and where they were engineered by DeGraw himself (the soft spoken Mountains to Move starts off with a full half-minute of virtual silence). While DeGraw’s musical presence is firmly intact on the new album, the album is as boring as all get out.
Free starts off like a weak cup of coffee and doesn’t improve much through the run of tracks. Thematically and stylistically, this is the Gaving DeGraw we know and love. It just lacks any energy. Free misses the force of his impassioned vocals and pounding piano chords that made his debut album transcendent. His second album was a dud, except for In Love With a Girl and We Belong Together (which was actually a better mix on the album than the Tristan & Isolde soundtrack); it came off like so much piano-bar fodder.
There’s no arguing that DeGraw can write a power ballad. But give me a break, how many times can you write songs about a broken heart? Stay stays the course, but it’s so mellow, it’s hard to believe this is a guy pleading for the love of his love to stick around. Glass is like a power ballad-lite. Lover Be Strong picks up the pace a little (barely) but it’s not a song you’ll remember later. Dancing Shoes and Waterfall return to the soft spoken formula that finally declare the album good for background noise and not much more.
I really like DeGraw’s musical sensibility (even though he comes off a goofy frat boy) but I found his last album barely tolerable as a whole, and this one not at all.
