Review: The Gleeman – Something To Say

Ok, this record captured our interest from the start. The opener, ‘The Legendary Planetary Émigré’, is a track full of musical miss-matches that gives it a sense of strangeness, echoing the subject matter. It’s not unpleasant, but required a little bit of dissection: The snare drums come in infrequently, the syncopated bells add complexity to an already full mix and the guitar focuses on the down beat and claps keep a beat at the end of every 4/4 line, it’s as if The Gleeman didn’t want the listener to have a single beat where something wasn’t happening. As for the vocal line, The Gleeman’s falsetto is accompanied by a harmony that can only be found in the depths of space, adding layers onto layers – and that’s just the first track. As the second track, ‘The Hurting’, kicks in we have what can only be described as musical whiplash. The Gleeman showcases a side of their voice that displays a richness and depth that sounds like he could sing any ballad from a millennials’ youth. It’s heartfelt, miles away from the fun, overstuffed opener. There’s a smell of The Calling’s ‘Wherever You Will Go’ about this track, with the next ‘Borrowed Time’ having a slight whiff of Elton John and that’s not just because it’s a piano ballad. It’s the structure of the track, the long vowel sounds and the use of ‘C’ and ‘T’ lyrically to provide a beat that the drum-less track needs. As we listened, there was a realisation that The Gleeman is incredibly adept at creating sonic spheres, mastering sound after sound and fine point-tuning their music and vocals to each track – it’s almost as if he’s showing off how many types of track he can produce eloquently, which makes sense, after all The Gleeman is a classic singer-songwriter. 

This is a 14-track album, but it feels like The Gleeman takes us on a journey, an overused phrase in music, but that is the only way it can be explained when it comes to ‘Something To Say’. ‘Marie’ is another change of pace, with trumpet and whistling coming into play to give this upbeat, positive track a happy feel. As the album progresses, it’s clear The Gleeman is a fan of piano, it’s almost as if you can see the artist sitting at the piano, writing away like a modern-day Bernie Taupin. Even on the track ‘Gunslinger’, the country-style guitar is an embellishment to the accomplished piano playing, everything comes second to The Gleeman’s voice and piano chops. Quiet acoustic tracks like ‘You Are Not Alone’ and ‘Blink Of An Eye’ allow the writing to shine. It’s an incredibly well executed album and overall, we are big fans.  

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