Written by: Dave Cantrell
Just to say right at the top, we don’t toss around referents like those used up there in that teaser of a title very often and when we do it’s never gratuitously. No, that kind of kudos has to be earned, not just given away as it too often is in the name of perfunctory industry sop. I mean, like others here at SEM, I may be a bit guilty – and a bit more often than most – in offering effusive somersaults of praise when deserved but, y’see, that’s just it. Once a record or single lights up certain circuits in the audio pleasure center, why hold back? Surely we’ve had enough of ironic distance by now and what’s it ever gotten us anyway but an artificial sense of cool? Nah, we’re not havin’ it. And thus do we come to this second single from Jordan Lewis.
While not yet a household name – a short-lived status, we’d guess, given what we’ve heard so far – the singer/guitarist/engineer has a deep enough pocketful of high profile experiences with those that are about as well known as any artist can be that we feel it’s safe to trust the guy’s instincts. And on “Desolation Shores” that implicit belief is rewarded in a way that amounts to certified gold for the ears and the heart lying in wait behind them. From the lush piano intro, trilling ever-so-gently like water from a crystal chandelier and banked inside a shadowy flourish of strings, to that resonant acoustic rhythmic chording and wah-wah Watson funk guitaring that breaks that spell only to layer on another one, this time flounced with the puck of early-to-mid Bowie while in thrall to Marc Bolan on which Mr Jordan doubles delightfully down once the vocals begin, clear through to the lengthy coda that occupies just about exactly the entire second half of this almost ten-minute wonder, in itself bold, take-no-prisoners wonderful, this breakout track (that could easily function as a demonstration record of Lewis’s manifold gifts: composer, performer, arranger, producer) makes two things, well, crystal clear: this Lewis guy has been carrying around some serious songwriting chops in his back pocket all the time he’s been building that enviable résumé as an A-list engineer, and, that experience on the other side of the studio glass has, quite beyond what one would reasonably expect, really paid off in terms of production chops. If “Desolation Shores” doesn’t deserve that four-letter ‘E’ word up there in the header then truly nothing does and all publications should cease using it as of now. That lyrically the song’s a paean to the desperate crossroads of a quickly-passing mortality, dreams full of doubt, doubt full of dreams, while simultaneously overriding that inescapable malaise with that roaring, indefatigable second movement, a creative choice that would appear to indicate if not victory then at least a fervent (defiant even) draw, only seals the deal for us.
The struggle to find meaning in our lives, beyond our children or our ambition, is of course ancient, universal, and never going away, all of which can equally be said about the drive to make art, a drive that, no coincidence, is one of the very few pathways to that elusive goal and arguably the most potent. That Jordan Lewis has folded those two imperishables into a single piece of work that also happens to be rousing, touching, inspiring and hummable to boot is indeed a gift. Open it.
