When I
first began listening to “Smoke and Mirrors”, I thought that I was going to
have Brett Dennen pegged as one of those folk singers who bordered on country
and thus I could easily write him off and move along. However, his music is a bit more complex
than just that and, as I found, doesn’t really contain as much of a country
influence as the first song might otherwise lead you to believe.
From
Tom Petty to Elvis Costello, Dennen channels some of the greats on this
album. But he does so in a manner that
enables him to grow on you without sounding like an exact clone of any of his
predecessors.
There
are occasional female backing vocals and some of the songs (“Out of My Head”
for instance) channel more of a pop acoustic rock feel (Think Rusted Root), but
overall, this guy is just making music that is just genuinely good.
Though
he seems to wear his influences on his sleeve, he can still manage to string
together a chorus catchy enough to make you quickly forget about all of
them. If he consistently puts out
albums like this, then yes, in time he will be where Tom Petty and his
contemporaries are now.
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