Thursday, December 20, 2012

14) Barchords - Bahamas (TOP 20 OF 2012)











Barchords

Bahamas
Universal Music.


“Lost In the Light”, handily one of the best tracks I’ve heard all year, recently placed prominently in a commercial for a jewelry company. I get that it’s a payday and I’m happy Afie Jurvanen’s had a successful year. Still, there are ample instances on Barchords that suggest an artist developing head and shoulders above today’s indie rites of passage. Much like “Lost In the Light”, tracks like “Never Again”, “Be My Witness” and “Time and Time Again” carry an air of timelessness, behaving more like statements of intent than something construable as an advertisement jingle.

Nothing quite touches that soul-shaking first track but Barchords’ well-paced variety proves Jurvanen’s adeptness for acoustic balladry (“Montreal”), laid-back electric jams (“Your Sweet Touch”) and upbeat pop (“Okay, Alright, I’m Alive”). In other words, there’s too much on display here to suggest that Bahamas isn’t a career artist in the making. 


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