Baltimore songwriter, Ethan Lott, writes simple songs that a close listen both rewards and reveals as a work in progress. He doesn’t have a voice that sticks out for its timbre or tenor, but he has a knack for melody, and his use of lower and upper register in a number of songs is quite effective. He reminds me of early Damien Jurado, Water Ave S.-era stuff, and has the same vulnerable appeal.
“You took me in and loved me truly / Guess I couldn’t let you do that to me,” he sings off the trumpet-rich fourth track, “Truly.” The trumpet is a perfect touch throughout the album, though, like Ethan’s voice, it is weaker in its delivery. It’s the honesty of the album that wins you over. “Oh, you’ve heard it all before, I believe / That you just can’t get enough of what you just don’t need.” He has a way of looking at heartache and crises of faith with hope and realism.
He could take some pointers from Damien Jurado’s Water Ave S. album. The way that Jurado uses more unique chords and more clever phraseology. Ethan starts with his most clever lyric on the album: “I found you broken down by the side of the interstate / Wondering when this life would start to reciprocate.” It sets the mood for an album of endearing woebegoness, but while the rest of the album holds the mood, it doesn’t have the same catchy turns of phrase.
Songs that stick out for their sound are the three-four, “Everything I Need,” with it’s perfect chorus, that recalls indie-pop greats or something like a Beatles’ or Tom Petty slow song. The lap steel enriched “Through Glass and Debris” is a fun country-ish romp as well, where he utilizes the upper and lower registers well. And the phrase, “And so I’ll take whatever steps need to be made / I’ll crawl on hands and knees through glass and debris,” is the most visceral and convincing and well, gruesome, of the lyrics on the album. He’s committed.
The endings of the songs leave something to be desired, but though they are mostly short songs, they are filled with good parts, guitar and trumpet solos, verses and choruses. Overall, it’s an impressive debut studio EP, recorded at Baltimore’s Watermelon Room. It’s a good batch of songs, not a bad one in the bunch, though he’s a king of understatement. What could be a detriment, but which I personally like a great deal about his music. He’s authentic and that goes a long way with a songwriter. I hope he continues to make a splash in the Baltimore scene.
Prism Reviews 