“Fanfare is a collection of some of my favourite home recordings from over the past few years and it’s very much a personal album.”
As I have never done an album review before, it was quite an interesting prospect for me to be able to finally do one, and I was even more excited when I had found out the entirety of this album was recorded and mixed by Vern Asbury himself and perhaps just as impressively every instrument was played by him too!
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]irst of all, before I review a combination of the tracks within this album, I’d like to compliment Vern on his excellent recording skills as the quality of this album is so high and impressive, and home recording to a high quality isn’t always easy!
The album opens with a really cool, indie, rock sound, with a Franz Ferdinand vibe, and with Asbury’s gritty vocals it really is a great introduction for this whole album.
[pullquote_left]“Turn It Around” was a stunning track on this album, and it should be playing on radio blasting out into hundreds of homes.[/pullquote_left]
The next few tracks reminded me a great deal of the “singer-songwriter” poetic vocalists that blew up a few years ago, artist such as Kate Nash coming from that scene.
“Left, Right & Centre” in particular reminded me of how these artists laid their vocals down as if they were a percussive instrument, using cool rhythms to support their lyrics. Asbury reminded me as to why I loved this particular niche of songwriters and how much I miss it in music today!
“Turn It Around” was a stunning track on this album, and it should be playing on radio blasting out into hundreds of homes. It had a real James Morrison vibe and I just loved it. The vocals within the chorus were so well rounded and blended beautifully with each instrument perfectly. It was such a well-written piece of music and I think anyone who hears that track would agree.
“Mr. Disco” was a really interesting one within this album, as it didn’t sound like any of the other tracks, and had a whole new vibe to it. The drums had, as the song title suggests, a disco vibe behind them, with a pounding four to the floor bass drum throughout the first verse, which excelled this song forward into a real old school dance sound.
The last tracks of the album went down a really cool, blues rock, ballad route and it’d be difficult for me to really determine which of them was better than the rest as they were all exceptional in their own unique way, but if I had to choose I’d say the final track “Lay Down Arms” would be a personal favourite as it’s just 10 minutes of powerful, wicked guitar lines.
I think the best thing about this entire album is how it has combined a variety of different genres and just placed them all together, slotting them perfectly into one another to make one large piece of musical work. Vern Asbury has demonstrated his ability within a variety of different instruments, excelling in pretty much every single one of them.
Vern Asbury is currently rehearsing with his live band and plans to do a bunch of gigs with them very soon, and intends to play a few tracks from this very album! It’ll be well worth taking a visit to a show to see Vern in action with a host of equally as talented musicians behind him!
[divider]
