Jack Savoretti – Harder Than Easy [Album]

De Angelis

July 22, 2009, 05:59 PM

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You know how it is: we listen so you don’t have to. I’m sure Jack Savoretti is not already on the top of most Altsounds readers ‘Most Played’ lists and his second album “Harder Than Easy” isn’t going to change that. It’s not that it is bad; it is just too mainstream and too mundane to be of genuine interest.

Jack is a half-English, half-Italian acoustic musician signed to a record label run by Natalie Imbruglia’s ex-manager (see where this is going?). He is in some ways similar to those other male solo artists like James Morrison, Jack Johnson, James Blunt et al (what is it with the letter ‘J’?). Not necessarily stylistically similar but for all of them image, looks and listener appeal is equally as important as the music [or to their record label bosses at least]. Jack appears on the record sleeve slouched in white vest with tousled hair and trilby hat: very much the bohemian troubadour. So image part sorted - what’s the music like?

Bookended by two more up-tempo tunes the album is mainly a set of melancholy ballads with strummed guitar, bluesy piano and Jack’s soulful, wounded vocals. So Paulo Nutini is a closer comparison: blue-eyed soul with a rootsy turn but Jack is less of a soul belter – he favours a more folksy approach. One biog I read said “the new Dylan”; hmmm some might consider the new David Gray to be a stretch.

However, Jack doesn’t simply deliver songs about being in love or his life lived as said bohemian troubadour. He aims for something more significant by tackling ‘world issues’. That being said we get songs about US foreign policy (“Lost America”), about life as a veteran suffering guilt at surviving combat (“Russian Roulette”) or about a prisoner on death row (“Mother”). Jack (and his co-writers) should be applauded for this but sadly Jack Savoretti tends to deal in generalisations or clichés. The opening lines to “Lost America”: ‘New Orleans to Bangladesh/ From the East bank to the West / Come with us and be the best / Make an enemy of the rest’ – it all sounds more nostalgic than critical or incisive.

Elsewhere there is more nostalgia in the form of a Nick Drake cover (“Northern Sky”) which is pleasant but pointless. The whole album aims for melancholic authenticity but for me comes up short. There is plenty of “listener appeal” here for those who want cosy and unchallenging and “Harder Than Easy” ultimately is just too comfortable and too clean-cut to make an actual impact.

This narrowly survives trash can fodder through Jack Savoretti’s attempt to say something beyond ‘moon/june’ love songs but only just!

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