Written by: Dave Cantrell

Let us be blunt. There are – as they say – vanishingly few songwriters that parallel the impact that Bill Pritchard has on us here at SEM, that can halt us amidst the fury of dreaded headlines as well the pressing mundanities of everyday life with a level of songcraft that, however gently, slyly even, steals our breath at every turn. It was the case here, and here, and here and, well, here we are again, clinging to nearly every syllable and nuanced arrangement off this recently-released (February 27th on Tapete) and so so appropriately titled new album Haunted as if it were a direly needed hand-up to those of us clingling to the cliff face and, really, right now, who among us isn’t?

Now, yes, that’s a lot to lay at the feet of any album (though, truth be told, we all have multiple examples in our own pasts that we could point to as having had exactly that rescue-like effect on us) but if any one artist’s work is not only going to survive such kudos by somehow not only never missing that mark but pretty much defining it, it’s this guy Pritchard’s. Hyperbolic? Well, yes, of course it is. His work has, and continues to, leave us little choice.

Swirling in melancholy and the bitterly sweet taste of regret, as intimate as it is universal, the throughline snaking through this album is, by its very existence, a testament to a stubborn – if gently so – resistance to any sense of the desperate in this life we’re born in to (without, need we say, our permission), straddling as it does that wobbly tightrope we each need to navigate day in day out. Haunted? Yes, how could we not be and, really, none of us would likely want it any other way but even should we want to, too bad seeing as its an intrinsic part of the bargain and why we, here at SEM anyway, seek – and honor – poet musicians such as Mr. Pritchard as they travel our hearts’ territories seemingly at will.

Here, with “Perpetual Tourist,” we begin our journey in that too-infrequently-explored terrain where the jaunty hangs out with the confessionally frank in which Mr. Pritchard roams, juggling romantic heartache with a stubborn streak of fatalism with his usual mix of the adroit with the mildly forlorned before continuing our way through the wry “Smile” that counsels resilience in the face of just about any and every challenge if only because if you have the strength to declaim the many ills surrounding us then you have the strength to “smile, float around for a while,” a suggestion this writer could use taking to heart and bets you could as well and if we may for a moment paraphrase a certain Fallen Mr. Smith ‘therein lies the deftness and therein’ which is to say there are just so precious few songwriters this effortlessly adept. More proof? Sure!

Check the subtle sway and swell of “Curious Feeling” with its ace couplet+ “boy you had a nerve when you didn’t fit it/when your life was absurd that’s where you begin/ to laugh at yourself again” which, I don’t know about you, but to this listener speaks the proverbial volumes which, indeed and in turn, speaks to this artist’s innate universality, as if he’s essentially singing to a mirror where all seem to be staring back; “Sweet Melody,” its Old World shimmer of accordion backdropping an otherwise fairly skeletal arrangement the shivering gist of which turns an inherent note of melancholy into a mood more approaching gratitude, no small feat but then who’s surprised not us (at which point it seems incumbent upon us to, um, point out the track’s none-more-salient line “after all, we have some history”); the joyous – hell, triumphant even – horn-buoyed “Lillie” that from lyric to structure announces itself with an intrinsic modesty as an out-and-out classic; the title track, sparsely elegant and as true as true gets to the vaunted romantic tradition that holds that love, as lovely as it is, lies a bit wounded, a bit ragged but nonetheless unable to let go of its own promise, admittedly fleeting as that may be; to closing track “Oxygen,” a delicate if undaunted paean to the primal heart – or, perhaps more accurately here, lungs – at the crucial center of undying love.

So, okay, we reckon you’ve read enough but trust us when we say you haven’t heard enough as, y’see, there is in this record an essence, a crucial nub if you will that, enigmatic and somewhat perplexing as it is, animates each one of us, one that doesn’t merely beg we pay it heed but rather demands it and seeing as, again, it’s an absolutely crucial part of the bargain we’re all born in to it’s no surprise, then, why we seek – and honor – poets such as Mr. Pritchard. Their voices, as is fully evident here, mirror that very essence. [order Haunted on CD or LP directly from the label here]