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Album reviews Music

Kevin Hearn

ñ KEVIN HEARN Days In Frames (Fontana) Rating: NNNN

Those who think of Kevin Hearn as the multi-instrumentalist in the Barenaked Ladies should get to know his songwriting. Hearn, who also spent a number of years as Lou Reed’s keyboardist and musical director, writes quirky, eclectic growers of songs. His third solo album is no exception.

Dedicated to Reed and Hearn’s late Aunt Lorraine, the songs on Days In Frames bring a light touch to serious subjects like mortality and religion. There’s plenty of musical variation. Cathedral’s classical guitar, for instance, contrasts with the buoyant, very danceable synths in Up Above, the bright, bursting pop of Best Day Yet and the broken dub of You Wrecked Me. But there’s a softness in Hearn’s distinctive vocals that remains constant, along with a promise of renewal and a sense of being midstream.

Chris Gartner and Bob Scott, Hearn’s Thin Buckle rhythm section, play on many of the songs, and Hearn assembled a special band of Reed collaborators for Floating – a touching, irreverent co-write with Reed about dying, featuring a guitar part in the outro by Reed himself.

Top track: Floating 

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