Brett Dennen & His Almost Amazing Album
Update: If you’re looking for tablature or lyrics for Brett Dennen songs, click here.
link to Brett Dennen at iTunes
While trying out Pandora.com I came across a song that brought me up from my work when it struck me as something completely original and brilliant. The song was called “Desert Sunsrise” by Brett Dennen and the moment I heard it I knew I was a fan. Not long after that I heard “By and By” from the same artist and from there I went straight to iTunes to buy the album.
“Brett Dennen” by Brett Dennen is an album with eleven unique tracks that would probably be classified as folk but that has its fingers in other genres as well (check out the jazz in “Desert Sunsrise”, the gospel in “All We Have”, reggae in “Day By Day”). Brett Dennen’s guitar-playing sounds very John Mayer in it’s purcussively jazz/folk quality, but his voice is all his own. It’s child-like, innocent quality, with soft “D”s and short vowels, reminds me of both Kalai and (dare I say it) Adam Sandler (especially in “By and By”, “Blessed”, “Don’t Forget”, and “When I Go”). But his vocal maturity comes out in his Jason Mraz style of chromatic note changes when, with deliberate and controlled emphasis, each note in a quick series is clearly produced.
Having heard “Desert Sunsrise” and “By and By” before purchasing the album I was expecting more of that caliber. I have to admit to more than a little disappointment, however, when I discovered that these two were the only ones that kept my attention. Brett Dennen’s guitar-work and sublime vocals were not enough to save “Blessed”, “Don’t Forget”, and “Day By Day” which were annoyingly repetitive, “Make the Most” and “All We Have”, which were didactic and left me feeling preached-to, and “When I Go” where his vocal melody just kind of wanders without any real focal point. For me this last point is most alarming and, while it was most apparent in “When I Go”, other songs suffer from it as well. Brett Dennen, at times, seems more interested in delivering lines than he does producing the melodies that he is capable of. As his career progresses I hope he learns that the music itself must sell the audience before anyone pays attention to his lyrical sermons.
If you would like a free flavor of Brett Dennen’s music he has a free download on his site. But know that it is far from his best. For two treasures download “By and By” and “Desert Sunsrise”. “Nothing Lasts Forever”, “Just Like the Moon”, and “Day By Day” are also ok.
But the rest are not good at all and I would not recommend them. –Andrew