Album Review: Gavin Glass, Opus Pocus

There’s bad luck, and then there’s bad luck. Gavin Glass completes a minor masterpiece in 2015’s Sunday Songs – an album of rich, country tinged songs - only for the record company to go tits up on release day. As good as it was, it disappears before it gets a chance.

Bloodied but unbowed, Glass regroups, retires to the studio, rethinks his approach, and returns with a very different long player that’s even better. Since we heard from him last, he’s gone through the earthquake of fatherhood, and the unconditional love that comes with it, celebrated in first single, 'You’re Gonna Break Your Daddy’s Heart’. Being a parent isn’t all shits and giggles mind, ‘Thirty Somethings’ makes reference to the economic challenges that are a big part of it. Love wins out though - ‘Horseshoe Tattoo’, ‘Matador’, and ‘Sparrow’ are all panegyrics to his partner’s pulchritude.

Musically, it’s a much tougher beast then he’s birthed before. He’s finally turned up his guitar - there’s proper meat on riffs like the one that holds up ‘Embers & Fire’, and the ceiling scraping shouting and roaring on “Sparrow’ is a joy to behold. It's Big Music, but there's more up this magician's sleeves than just that. Glass has long been the producer of choice to the cognoscenti and he throws all his tricks at the wall here. Synths, samples (Acker Jaysus Bilk!), loops, pedal steel, and even a moog theremin all get wheeled out. Several songs dissolve into quasi-electronic instrumental segues, and he closes things out with the properly out there ‘Count Exile’ - a musical maelstrom designed to reflect the turmoil of personal tragedy.

None of this would matter a jot, of course, if he didn’t have a fine set of tunes to hold it all together, but if you’re after melodies, Glass has got them.

Proper, grown up rock n’ roll from a man who's lived through what he's singing about. Without reaching for my dog-eared Latin Primer, let’s do a very rough translation: Opus Pocus – Magic Work.

Rating: 8/10