The Reluctant Graveyard is a clever and catchy death themed album created by Jeremy Messersmith. Each song is a story that contributes to the album as a whole. Messersmith’s vocals and vocal layers are smooth, relaxing and beautiful. Messersmith’s lyrics are well written, creative, and thoroughly entertaining. The string arrangements in the majority of the songs are subtle, yet powerful, and evoke an Andrew Bird style melody. The Reluctant Graveyard has a distinct Beatles sound, but with a much more folk feel, like Cat Stevens. Messersmith’s influences are pleasantly present in his music, and he also has developed his own, unique, fantastic style. The album picks up the pace a bit with the song ‘Violet!’ but slows down with the soft melodies of the songs ‘A Girl, A Boy and a Graveyard’ and ‘Repo Man’. ‘Toussaint Grey, First in Life and Death’ has a sweet harmonica solo! Very witty album that is definitely worth listening to!
FCC clean!
Recommended Tracks: 1, 3, 4*, 5, 7*, 8, 11