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Ryan Powers Boyle - Ryan Powers Boyle [Album]

Far and Away Records

by realrockergirl, July 16th, 2010 and has been Read 1231 times.
Last Edited by: realrockergirl July 16th, 2010.

Reviewing Ryan Powers Boyle's eponymous album was very challenging! On the first listen, I was trying to evaluate each track as if it were a "song", in the usual sense of the word. But that didn't seem to work at all. So I gave it a second listen, hoping to get a better idea, and sure enough, I soon realized that this album isn't simply 10 songs on a CD. This album is really one piece of music, with each track being a different "movement" within the work. Using that approach, I finally "got" this artist. What Ryan Powers Boyle has produced is really a musical epic poem about the emotional journey through life.

The album starts out with a "song" that was vaguely reminiscent of an E Street Band ballad, but somehow still different. The mix on the guitar made it sound like a toy guitar, and I wasn't crazy about that, but overall, "Yesterday" was a nice, mellow song, with lyrics about how the future becomes the past, how life just happens and nothing stays the same. "The Cell" followed with another poem about how life is fraught with competing forces and influences, and the hope that somehow perseverance will get us through the battle we call life.

Almost all of the songs really had no standard beginning and end, and some of them were kind of rambling and way too long. For instance, “I Can See” is only 2 seconds short of being 10 minutes long, and the lyrics really rambled on along with the music. I did like how the line “but now you’re with me again” changed from the minor key to the major key, totally in keeping with the sentiments being expressed. But basically, this is another song about love, not having it, wanting it, having it, etc. “Uncertain” is over 7 minutes long and another paean to the uncertainties of life’s path, and the difficulties of choosing the right one, but this time the lyrics totally resonated with me. It felt like he was writing about my own fears and hopes, and was very relevant.

“Through This Life” was another almost 10-minute song that combined some sad lyrics with beautiful accompanying music, but I had a hard time paying attention for that long. In the end, I had no idea what the lyrics really meant, but the general vibe of the song was very nice and rather Neil Young-like at times.

I could go on about each “song”, but it would be better to say that this album is almost a free association of both words and music. Mostly the themes are about how life is fleeting, and how we are all merely dust in the wind, “one shooting star of a million”, each of us looking for love. Honestly, I had a very difficult time understanding some of the lyrics, such as on “A Matter Of Miles”, that starts off telling a story about a pregnant woman about to give birth, and then goes off into some surreal land that is probably only understandable to Ryan Powers Boyle himself. To me this almost 11-minute song seemed like a bad mushroom trip that lasted way too long .

The last track, “Far And Away” was almost like Indian meditation music with lyrics, with the quality of the voice saying as much as the words themselves. It kind of put me in a yoga, feel-good kind of state, and it was a very good way to end the album.

Overall, I’d have to say that, even though this album isn’t really my cup of tea, it is a beautifully written and performed symphonic sojourn to that spot deep inside the soul that is common to every human. And Mr. Boyle’s voice perfectly conveys the feelings of uncertainty, of fleeting existence, and of the melancholy of knowing that life is so fleeting and short. Even the cover of “Chapel of Love” has a melancholy feel to it, making it almost a different song altogether from the original. I have deep respect for Ryan Powers Boyle who was the sole performer on this album, but I think I’d like this cd better if I were an angst-ridden teenager in whom those feelings are constantly bubbling on the surface of the psyche. But I’m not so old that these feelings are completely submerged, and this album was still very moving. Thank you, Ryan Powers Boyle for a beautiful musical journey to the depths of my being that made me feel connected to the rest of humanity.