2017 – Sean Taylor Songs
By Phillip Smith;
Feb 18, 2017
Flood and Burn, the eighth full-length release from UK singer/songwriter Sean Taylor is an engaging, melodic jewel. The album consists of eleven original pieces covering a variety of genres, along with a compelling bluesy cover of “Heartbreak Hotel” featuring Taylor on harp and Andre Moran on slide guitar.
The velvety and lulling “Codeine
Dreams” welcomes the listener in with soft swirly vocals amid colorful splashes
of saxophone courtesy of Joe Morales.
Taylor’s poetic mastery cleverly
reveals itself on “A Good Place to Die” and the jazzy “Cruelty of Man”.
With Roscoe Beck (Leonard Cohen)
on double bass and Mike Hardwick on
pedal steel, “Troubadour” beautifully recounts the uncertainly of life as a
traveling musician. A wave of melancholy
washes over me when I hear “Life Goes On”.
Whether going through good times or bad, one can only go forward. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away when Taylor charmingly conjures up an ominous
hill-country vibe on the downtempo title track “Flood and Burn”. Mark
Hallman guests on banjo and Andre
Moran on slide guitar, elegantly setting the song’s dark mood.
Subtle references to Charles Bukowski, Townes Van Zandt, and Skip
James are delightfully plucked like Easter eggs from “Bad Case of the Blues”. A lush mix of slide guitar from Moran and violin from Hana Piranha taxis this daunting melody
to exactly where it needs to be. “Better
Man”, a song of blessing and sacrifice, guided by the wonderful talent of Piranha on violin and Danny Thompson on double bass, eloquently brings Flood & Burn to a graceful end.
