Jay Ekis: Touched By War

A curious blending of influences, synthesized into an overall pleasing sound: perhaps the best angle to approach this album that I purchased a couple days ago after Ekis's solo performance at the Bee's Knees in Morrisville, VT. Ekis's sound is difficult to classify, because he draws on so many sources. Perhaps most obvious, at first listen, is his debt to the sound of classic Pink Floyd, with soaring slide guitar solos, literate lyrics, and a simple, relatively pure tenor vocal. Songs such as "Fire," the opening track, display this tendency most clearly; likewise, the closing tune, "Quiet Voices" sounds like one of Floyd's more introspective, organ-y ballads. Yet there are also marked debts to country music--"Ride Free" and "Shannon," the tale of a tattoo-covered barmaid and a love song, respectively, are straight-up country a la Kris Kristofferson or Wilco's contributions to Mermaid Avenue. With the inclusion of a few 70s/80s-influenced rock numbers ("Guns and Stone," the title track, and "Just a Fact") the folky-sounding "Bleed," and the marvelous "Down," this coalesces into an intriguing stew of styles that somehow mananges to seem coherent. Perhaps it is Ekis's voice, which seems equally at home with upbeat full-band songs like "Just a Fact" and with the solo acoustic "Bleed". Perhaps it is rather the quality of the lyrics, which blend the best of all genres: by turns poetic and straightforward, apocalyptic and wryly humorous, and often insightful, Ekis's songwriting also occasionally reflects his self-professed early love--heavy metal. War-torn songs like "Guns and Stone" contain imagery that sometimes sounds like something from one of Metallica's classic sturm und drang pieces. But perhaps most of all, the coherence is obtained through the efforts of Ekis's bandmates, who successfully blend all these sounds, giving one a distinctively country-sounding bass or hints of slide or pseudo-steel guitar in some of the rock numbers, and a slight edge of distortion on the more country-oriented tunes. Altogether, a well crafted batch of songs, ably performed--a satisfying and thought-provoking listening experience. 3.5 stars