‘Clocked’ is the latest album from New York City-based singer-songwriter NOAM WEINSTEIN. This is his seventh album, and follows on from 2010s ‘Found Alive’.
There is much to listen to here, with influences as wide and varied as Tom Waits, Harry Nilsson, Leonard Cohen, and Ben Folds. Noam’s band features Steve Nistor on drums, Sebastian Steinberg on bass, Larry Goldings on keyboards, and both Noam and Mike Viola sharing vocals and guitar duties. There are twelve tracks varying from panoramic ballads to country-based pop; all twelve tracks have excellent quality lyrics which adds to the listening experience.
Opening with ‘Kill Me Again’, which starts as an acoustic guitar folk song and opens into a sweeping chorus that just builds: -
“Kill me again, let me die slowly in your hands, kill me again.
Bring me back to life, bring me back Liza, make it all alright.
Then kill me again, let me die slowly in your hands, kill me again.”
Following on from this is ‘As It Fell’, a drum heavy pop ballad, a love song, the lyrics of which could be referring to Noam’s heart: - “It dropped hard and fast. I turned just in time to see it pass/ Bright red in the summer sun, down it came, around it spun/ My my, well, well,She didn't even try to catch it as it fell, she didn't even try to catch it as it fell/ She didn't even try to catch it.” However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a degree of hope and belief in what is yet to come: -
“And some day it may rise again, but now it's lying in the dirt.
Some day it may rise again, but oh boy this one's gonna hurt.”
The quirky ‘Time’s Wider’ also stood out. It's an aching ballad with acoustic guitar that really hits the spot. The lyrics here are introspective, and musing on life’s great questions, to which everyone may have a different answer: “So let us now recall the man back to his wall, and the mouse back to his maze/
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Though time's wider, time's wider than, time's wider than space.
Cuz these strings that stretch & wind, we'll finally find, are just borrowed anyways/ So time's tighter, our time's tighter than, some time time cannot replace.”
Finally, the album closes with the epic ‘After a While’, a country-style piano ballad, which is in the mould of something Tom Waits would do. This is a song that reflects on the adage that familiarity breeds contempt, i.e. that what we see every day, we ultimately end up ignoring: - “After awhile, it's easy not to see/ The mountains and valleys that sit outside your window/ After awhile it's easy to believe/ The towers and the trees that rise have always done so/ Can take a stranger vision can take a stranger's eyes/ To show you all the beauty by your side? Cannot remember how now, cannot remember when/ But you could see it clearly once, so you can see it once again.”
Noam Weinstein has clearly got got a way with melodies and excellent lyrics. I much preferred the slower tracks to the poppier ones, but that’s just personal taste. There is much here to persuade anyone who enjoys eclecticism to investigate further.
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