Andrew Norsworthy: Horizon City
Published: December 21, 2006
Last Modified: December 21, 2006 at 05:30 AM
Andrew Norsworthy
Horizon City
****
Download: Selected tracks are available for listening at www.myspace.com/horizoncity and www.andrewnorsworthy.com.
It's so nice to listen to a thoroughly intelligent bunch of songs. Singer and guitar player Andrew Norsworthy is a talented writer, enough that his songs would read just fine as poems on a page.
Almost as refreshing: The former Anchorage boy's new CD, "Horizon City" -- set for official release early next year -- is largely melody-driven. It shows off his knack for unexpected song structures. And it maintains a certain rawness without coming off as unpolished.
The eponymous mid-album track is a standout. "Horizon City" the song is upbeat and catchy, shifting around the American map from New York to Salt Lake City and so on. Its successor, the more characteristic "Avalon," succeeds as a plaintive, spare ballad whose lyricism ("I don't know what to do with love when it's in my palm") crescendos near the end only to devolve into a mess of feedback.
Another highlight is the only nonoriginal piece on the collection, a Patrick Sweany blues cover called "Smokestacks." It's a rhythmic, rootsy road song, and Norsworthy's emotive pipes, which break into a cappella at the end, are the ideal vehicle for lines such as "Keep them tires on the highway" and "Floor don't make no kind of bedroom."
Norsworthy is aided on "Horizon City" by a sextet of occasional musicians, who provide rough-hewn percussion, backing vocals, lap steel accompaniment, etc. They're wonderful ornaments on the powerful vocals and strings that make Norsworthy such an arresting listen.
-- Lillie ldremeaux@adn.com">Dremeaux
ldremeaux@adn.com
