Kyle Morgan – Younger at Most Everything
Team Love Records – 25 February 2022
Privileged to be granted early access to Kyle Morgan’s Younger at Most Everything, it was the first album scheduled for a 2022 release that I heard last year. And as the subject of my first review of this young year, I’m delighted to report that my 2022 could hardly have kicked off to a more beautiful soundtrack.
Titled for a misheard line in Gram Parsons’ Hickory Wind (I’d started out younger / Had most everything), this collection of eleven gorgeous songs is one of those gems that’s so good and so atmospheric that it stops you in your tracks, demanding you sit, listen carefully, and experience it from top to tail. However, its quality hasn’t come as a total surprise, as Morgan’s chops as a gifted songwriter have been on display across three fine albums recorded under the moniker Starcrossed Losers. Yet as good as that project’s eponymous debut (2013), Bind Us Anew (2016), and Strange Hesitations (2019) are, between them, they offered only occasional glimpses as to what Morgan would conjure up with Younger at Most Everything, at least from a sonic perspective.
The trio of Starcrossed Losers albums present a span of styles, taking in catchy pop, country-rinsed ballads, propulsive rock ‘n’ roll, folk-rock, twangy 50s-influenced bops, and even the occasional art-rock number. Still, this debut for Team Love Records – and, perhaps tellingly in respect of reinvention, the first release under Morgan’s own name – is laser-focused in terms of the sound he was evidently striving for.
Blessed by a mood-setting string trio on the opening cut, this is an almost entirely acoustic, refined chamber-folk-pop sound, and what a triumph the decamp to this territory is. In accordance with this stylistic shift, to suit the album’s elegant backdrop and do full justice to his personal lyrics, the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has tweaked his vocal delivery a tad, softening it into a sweet croon.
The overall effect is intoxicating, particularly because just when you think you’ve likely heard every possible yearning melody capable of moving you to the brink of tears – and, gulp, beyond – along comes this Queens, NY-based artist to flip that notion on its head with his glorious new opus. And that’s exactly what dwells at the heart of the strong connection I feel to this album – the melodies Morgan has summoned are heavenly – and, sequenced in the manner of a song cycle or suite, there’s a hypnotic melodic flow from start to finish.
The tone is immediately set with the lovely six-minute opener, And You, both a tribute to Morgan’s father – who passed away in 2020 – and an interwoven collage of childhood memories. Each of us possesses a brain-bank of random, sepia-tinted flashbacks that, whether triggered or without warning, can rise to the surface, but the way in which Morgan frames those associated with his dad is magical. Snapshot images mingle with sounds and scents – lemon lozenges, baby powder, perspiration, cigarette smoke, diesel fuel, coconut sunscreen – trips to the beach, and other reminiscences to create a touching aural tapestry of his early family life. Set against an exquisite string arrangement, it’s the perfect introduction to this 52-minute collection of affecting, intimate material.
A solo acoustic performance, The Seedling, continues in the same heartrending vein, then the feels keep on coming with the following Tara and Know No More, both reminiscent of Elliott Smith’s uncanny way with a melancholy melody. Another beauty, Deer in the Pines, puts me in mind of the mighty Fruit Bats – a huge favourite of mine – and is followed by Woman, a countrified love ballad from the top drawer of that category of songwriting.
I struggle to find superlatives lofty enough for the wondrous Momma Take My Hand, the first of two seven-minute epics on Younger at Most Everything. Hymnal and transcendent, it shimmers from beginning to end and features a mesmerizing Morgan vocal performance. The spell cast by this extraordinary album is maintained by the delicate Broken Love, before the second seven-minute showpiece, Ransom the Captive Heart, further advances the tingles this collection of songs evokes. I hear echoes of Rufus Wainwright in this gentle, slow-building waltz. Of the next song, Do You Still Have Some Fight in You, Morgan says:
“This song came from the belly of the whale which was my 2020. I’ve struggled with OCD since I was 13, and the pandemic combined with the death of my dad triggered a spike in symptoms like I hadn’t experienced since my teenage days. ‘Fight’ arose like a message from a more evolved, future self, asking me to trust my innate capacity for recovery.”
Indeed, from out of Morgan’s emotional turmoil emerged a surging pop song that, from the precise midpoint of its four-minute duration, sees its architect repeat the title over and over as a self-motivational mantra, bringing the song to a blissful climax. Such is its power that perhaps it should have closed Younger at Most Everything, but instead, that honour goes to the breezy, slightly flamenco-flavoured Something Younger which, considering the forty-nine minutes of drama that precedes it, comes almost as a breather!
With the exception of upright bassist/string arranger Sean Cronin, percussionist Jason Hoffheins, and the string trio of Clara Kennedy (cello), Ginger Dolden (viola), and Pete Lanctot (violin) on the opener, Morgan handles everything else, so all guitars (including bass), keyboards, pedal steel, and drums. He also co-produced the album with Ryan Dieringer at Welterweight Sound Studio in New Paltz, New York.
Younger at Most Everything is truly a beauteous and soulful thing, and, amazingly, much of it was built atop inspired live solo performances captured by Dieringer in two whirlwind days of sessions at the end of February 2020. In conclusion, my goodness, we’re just a few weeks into the year, and I already have a likely shoo-in for inclusion in my 2022 Folk Radio Top 10. If the rest of the year continues to deliver music of this soaring standard, we could be in for a vintage twelve months.
Younger at Most Everything will be released digitally on Bandcamp and all major streaming platforms on February 25th. Due to global pressing delays, the vinyl edition will follow in May or June.
Bandcamp: https://kylemorgan.bandcamp.com/
Web: http://starcrossedlosers.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kylemorganmusician