treasure trove
The first of the twelve songs on singer-guitarist Rich DePaolo’s second album is ironically called ‘More of the same’. DePaolo’s debut ‘For the loss of divinity’ contained comparable songs, but was already self-released in 2003, so few will know that. Apart from that fact, in that song he sings about stars that want to remain stars whatever the cost, something he clearly does not dream of, nor can dream about: above all he is a producer, an engineer and a guitar player for others.
That song is an ideal prelude for his album, because his majestic, acoustic opening chords, the
propelling drums and bass, the echoing electric guitar in the background and his subdued, melancholic singing are balanced perfectly and illustrate his main theme musically: the often
casually developing contradiction between principles and daily greed, jalousy and egoism.
Although his second song rocks too hectically, ballads and medium-tempo songs
are in the majority. They have well-thought, naturally flowing melodies and are varied musically, while DePaolo sings just als regretfully as beautifully, both solo and background vocals.
He mostly uses small instrumentations: drummer Bill King, Michael Savage on organ or harmonium, sometimes augmented by Robby Aceto’s guitar loops, while he plays bass and guitar himself. That is often an evocative electric one, but sometimes a dobro or a Spanish guitar too.
Thus he combines the sing-songwriter genre and folk rock in an original way. Two songs contain a string quartet and that draws them to what used to be called ‘pop’ once, but most of them are intense in their sparseness. Especially those songs prove that the totally unknown DePaolo is one of the great ones.
***1/2
Ruud Heijjer