A twenty-year wait for an adult, sometimes intimate, set of songs.
“Truce” is New Yorker Sheffler’s third album; however, it is his first in almost twenty years. During that time, he worked as a freelance research editor and writer for a national American magazine; now, he has returned to music, and “Truce” is the result.
Despite his background as a writer, he found the process of penning these songs not an easy one, until he came across a quote from short story writer George Saunders, whose very straightforward philosophy was “If it’s not fun, don’t do it.” This mantra enabled him to write eleven songs that document his life, feelings, and hopes in a charming manner that is a very engaging listen.
The album starts with a very relaxed acoustic song, ‘Excuse the Mess’, which frameworks the difficulty we have all had in starting a new relationship. It has a comfortable but slightly insecure feel to it, which summons up his mood perfectly. ‘I Don’t Love You Like I Should’ is a genuinely warm ballad about feeling that he is not measuring up in his relationship with his partner and is not really sure what he can do to improve the situation. You can feel him agonising over his perceived inadequacy. Again, something that many can identify with.
Scheffler deals with the little everyday situations very nicely indeed. ‘Where Do I Know You From?’ sums up a circumstance we have all been in, where you recognise a face but can’t put it into context or name it. The way the song is structured, you can almost hear his mind working, struggling with what to say. It’s worked very cleverly.
It would be very easy to pick out the subtle nuances in all the songs, but that would spoil some of the enjoyment of discovery. As you would expect from a writer, the words here are all important; in that sense, the album could very easily sit with Harry Chapin’s ‘Short Stories’. They are all stories about relationships, good and bad, past and present – not wide-screen big picture stories but smaller, more intimate ones. Soap opera rather than big screen.
“Truce” is definitely an album for adults who are able to relate to and have had similar challenges and setbacks, particularly in long-term relationships and the tensions they can produce but they are still able to see the hope in the future. It is not one for background music, as it lacks much light and shade, that, however, may be its strength.
