JACK SAVORETTI - Before The Storm

After two albums of delicate, refined melodic pop, it wasn't fair to expect a Copernican revolution from Jack Savoretti, but the surprise is that the third album, "Before The Storm", is a solid set of songs that doesn't betray his audience's expectations and also proves capable of winning over a wider one.

The choice to play in coffee shops, bars and train stations has proved a winning move, and the new songs possess a grit and urgency unheard of until now. Jack Savoretti shows greater command of his vocal timbre: the Paul Young-like inflections and the rough-edged tenderness borrowed from David Gray are now a thing of the past, and his current gravelly tone recalls more the American folk-rocker Marc Cohn or the gripping Irish mysticism of Van Morrison.

The album boasts two solid, engaging episodes that stand out as potential hits: the first, "Take Me Home", flaunts a refrain that builds and wraps itself in a rich, accomplished electro-acoustic arrangement, while the other, "Vagabond", explores the dark side of American music (Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen) with a skillful blend of anger and despair.

While granting the two aforementioned tracks a more evident originality, the pleasant impression remains that all the songs are the product of style and creativity. The infectious romanticism of "Changes", the majestic Celtic soul of "Before The Storm" (with echoes of Van Morrison at his best), the buoyant folk of "Not Worthy" and the fingerpicking of "Crazy Fool" are all rich in emotional honesty, with arrangements that, wisely, never crowd out the lyrical structure.

Jack Savoretti retains his identity and his own style while broadening the range of his influences and sounds, and strong, confident songwriting makes the variety of sonic language feel cohesive: there's the grit of "For The Last Time", which recounts fragile feelings with bitterness and poetry, the enveloping blues-folk of the evocative "Breaking The Rules", and even a rough guitar chord that creates the swirling sound of "Lifetime" (one of the most compelling songs of his career).

"Before The Storm" could easily be dismissed by many as harmless and superfluous: it has no particularly weighty lyrics, and the songs follow predictable, already familiar blueprints, yet Jack Savoretti possesses a genuine expressive force capable of making ordinary emotions feel new again. And he manages this without necessarily having to draw on memories or old songs: the Eagles-style country-rock of "The Proposal", the Joe Jackson-style swinging pop of "Last Call", the modern Paolo Nutini-esque leanings of "Come Shine A Light" and the playful riff of "Knock Knock" (slightly reminiscent of Celentano's "Svalutation") are more than enough to mark Jack Savoretti's third project as his most mature album to date.

Despite the limited resources of the new label Fulfill, at times evident in a less polished recording than the previous two albums, "Before The Storm" is a small triumph for anyone who holds consistency and creativity as the two guiding principles of singer-songwriter pop.

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04/06/2012