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Josh Groban has always been a great singer. What is really amazing is that after years of voice lessons he is noticeably better. How could he improve what was already so great? He managed. Everything is clearer, purer, richer, better executed. His lowest notes used to be his downfall & he sometimes struggled with them, but no more. His higher range notes sound more relaxed, more powerful, clearer. Unbelievable. The one oddity, for a near-operatic baritone, is that he relies a great deal on falsetto, which sometimes works well, but not always.
The sound on this album is just crystal clear, clean, awesome. I've never heard anything sound so clean.
Josh wrote 11 of the songs on this album, mostly with collaborators. This is more than he's written before. The songs include quite a bit of variety, with some sounding distinctly classical, others sounding more like folk ballads, and one ("The War At Home") sounding just a little bit country-ish. The lyrics and sound are generally moving and thought provoking.
The album is missing some of the more avante-guarde elements of some of his earlier albums -- and generally comes off as more traditional -- and yet not traditional. His melodies always take unexpected twists. His voice makes unexpected shifts in timbre. Just as you think you're in familiar territory musically, suddenly you're not. But the stuff he did with Mouquet and Heap in the past were more experimental, which is the one thing I really miss on this album, though "Voce Existe in Mim" has a bit of the quality of those prior works of Josh's.
In the past, I saw him as part of an international community of fusionists who were working to fuse elements of all sorts of music together to form new sounds. I saw him as the first mainstream new music composer; but this album isn't like that so much. Its newness is more subtle. It does not really sound like anything else that's been out there before, while not using any exotic elements.
Josh is profoundly creative, one of the most revolutionary forces in music today, a real genius -- one who picks up the torch of classical music and moves it in new directions. And, yet, there is that hypnotic singability of some of the choruses.
Josh considers this to be essentially a "live" album. Many songs were "one take." And, yet, you don't notice. It is all apparently flawless.
Instruments: predominantly piano and strings
Comments about some individual songs -- all having a rich and soaring sound, BTW:
Wandering kind: an instrumental piece composed by Josh when he was 12, with added musicians. Complex, beautiful, cheerful
Bells of New York City: minor, mournful
Galileo: A cover of an Irish song by Declan O'Rourke. This is the one song I find annoying on here. While a pretty song, it takes as its theme bemusement at the idea of a scientist falling in love and not finding a scientific explanation for his feelings. As a scientist, I find this offensive, as it seems to imply that scientists are not naturally human and that it's odd for us to be just like everyone else.
L'Ora Dell'Adio: the most operatic of these pieces. It really show cases the maximum magnificence of Josh's voice. Lyrics in Italian.
Hidden Away: the first released single of which there is an official music video featuring Miss Kentucky 2009. This starts out with a very sweet, pop-like tone, but deteriorates into a sequence with many rough transitions between baritone and falsetto. This is not my favorite one of the songs musically, but it's starting to grow on me. It has a very nice message about trying to be positive and loving, rather than keeping warmth inside.
Au Jardin de sans pourquoi: I find this one particularly beautiful, though he does have a tendency to go back and forth over the same interval a lot. Lyrics in French. one of the few where Josh wrote the music alone, though it's considered a "cover" of another piece, presumably because of the words)
Higher Window: a very beautiful, but sad love song about a man who may have missed his chance after initially rejecting a woman.
If I Walk Away: This is a love song with a very catchy & singable chorus. A fun one.
Love Only Knows: Another one with a very catchy and singable chorus -- very hard to get out of my head, but leaving me with a feeling that this guy is ultimately going to get hurt.
Voce Existe in Mim: This is my personal favorite. It has a huge sound with very unusual sequences, where the voice is not so dominant and the instrumentals are very strong. This is probably the most experimental sounding one, and features a large all female drumming group. Lyrics in Portuguese.
War at Home: This one has a slight hint of country sound. It's about soldiers who have suffered in war. Josh wrote this after a visit to Walter Reed Hospital. It's very, very moving -- very hard to get out of my head. I predict that this is going to be the most popular out of this album.
London Hymn: This is heavy on the instrumentals, with Josh blending in, very orchestral and choral. In Latin.
Straight to You: a cover of a rock song by Nick Cave. Well, if you're a rock fan, you won't like it. If you're a pop/classical fan, you wouldn't like the original and will like this one much better.
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Addendum
After listening to this at least five more times now, I am struck by a pervasive sadness about the thing. It sounds like Josh's love life hasn't been going very well. There is a sense of yearning in all the songs -- of pain, really. Josh is such a clown in his spoken life, and sometimes he wonders why people think he is so serious, but the music sounds very serious, almost grim.
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Second Addendum
In his "Before We Begin" concert at Union Chapel, Josh explained that "London Hymn" was written in London, shortly after he wrote "The War at Home." It is a sort of quiet requiem piece that has afterthoughts about his visit to Walter Reed Hospital.
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Third addendum
In his "Before We Begin" concert in Toronto, Jan. 13, Josh explained that "Au jardin des sans pourquoi" had lyrics written by Rufus Wainwright and his mother, both of whom are or were noted songwriters. though Josh wrote the music . At one of the "Before We Begin" concerts, Wainright came up to ask if the song had made it onto the record. It turned out it was the only song he had written with his mother and she had died shortly thereafter.
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Fourth addendum:
I saw a recent interview where Josh said that "If I Walk Away" was written to his parents and other people in his life who keep him grounded -- to encourage them to continue keeping him grounded.
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Disappointed
Embarrassed to gift this. The outer case arrived with cracks on the front and back. Two stickers were half peeled off and messy, one of which had a 1.99$ price sticker on it. And the wrap around it was ripped and peeling off. Hope the CD inside works.
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