Album Details

• Artist: Tyne Darling
• Album: The Secret November
• Label: indie
• Year of Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: mark_morton on 2012-08-31

Milwaukee's Tyne Darling is a modern day troubadour, a traveling storyteller sharing his life experiences in a melodramatic, introspective and oftentimes romantic, singer-songwriter journeyman style.

He rides that Springsteen-ian edge between blue color starkness and easy-going, modern country rock. And his lyrics see-saw between romance and depression, expressing the bi-polarity associated with life. At any given moment, we are able to feel what Darling feels, by the simple fact that he is able to convey these sensibilities with minimalist instrumentation - a testament to the unembellished professionalism of his musicianship.  As the Led Zeppelin adage goes, "Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share."

When he ventures into a bit more upbeat and louder material, he hearkens a hint of Counting Crows balladry. And the dulcet kiss of brass through many of the tracks invoke a springtime romanticism, creating a musical metaphor for the cloud's silver lining.

The only thing that is really stylistically constant through Secret November is the guitar playing and the vocal delivery. The atmospherics, rhythms and other accoutrements dip and weave through a bevy of genres.

Because much of the album comprises slow-to-mid tempo songs, by the time you reach the end, you feel emotionally drained and borderline depressed. In fact, the album's closer, "New York Palace", is a brass and bass-led track that invokes the sensation of walking alone through nighttime Brooklyn during a thunder storm.

Tyne's storied and pained vocal delivery is the aural equivalent of a thousand-yard stare - it is the voice of a man who has experienced too many negative things in his life and has become forever changed. Of course, had he been capable of letting go, this album most likely would not exist.

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