By Katie Whitman and Sarah Jaeggli
Harrison has released its first CD, Possibilities - a thirteen song album whose musical style can best be described as indie alterna-soft rock. For a first album (paid for completely out-of-pocket by Harrison), the recording quality and musicianship are excellent.
If I had to describe the album with one word, “pleasant” would be it. The entire album is filled with clean sounding vocals and natural sounding instruments playing catchy, finger-tapping hooks that are, well, uplifting. I have listened to this album maybe fifty times in the last couple weeks and I am still enjoying it. I can’t tell you how many times a Harrison song would come up on my iTunes and I would think – “Wow, who is that? Did I download some new music that I forgot about?” Yes, they sound that good.
The songs are filled with ostinato (repetition). The musical parts tend to linger amongst the higher pitches, only occasionally bringing in lower and heavier power chords for short “rock” breaks. The instrumental and vocal parts are constantly moving, layered one on top of the other, combining together in complimentary structures. During the song, Star, the vocalists sing in counter-point, a nice touch that raises the complexity above your standard local band.
A few things caught my attention when I first popped this album into my computer. I particularly like the lyrics in the song We are Free:
And you found some things to be beautiful/ And you found some things depraved/ And you learned to be cynical/ But you also learned how to be brave
The album is full of positive stories about love, hanging on when life gets tough, and the power of music.
Musically, my favorite song on Possibilities is entitled Thomas’s Lament, a down-tempo ballad with the first (and only) sign of minor chords. Here we find a song with some edge. A sparse, sad, vocally-centered verse leads into a distortion-filled chorus that proclaims victory over sadness with the words: The days go by so slowly/ The nights are never long enough/ Take all of your regrets/ Put them away to deal with later.
If I have any criticism, it is that Possibilities is, for the most part, lacking any edge (with the exception of Thomas’s Lament). When you listen to the CD for the first time, you begin to feel like one song is running into the other. It is almost exciting when you come across power-chords just because they break up the sound. For the first half of the album, Harrison tends to stay within its musical comfort zone. The band begins to reach out towards their boundaries during the second half – playing more complicated musical parts, showing off the drummer’s real abilities, drifting away from merely pleasant and starting to rock out.
In the end, I am impressed with this album and will continue to listen to it over and over, happily singing along with the compelling lyrics. I look forward to Harrison’s next album and hope that they will stretch their wings and show us what they’ve got. I believe that they are a band headed for greatness, so go out and see them live and buy their CD before you can’t even get tickets to their shows. For more information on Harrison, visit www.MySpace.com/Harrisonmusic or www.harrisonsound.com.
