Taking his time, and it shows.
Things began to take a different turn for Liam St. John in 2021 when his single ‘Dipped in Bleach’ went viral. The temptation at that stage would have been to cash in with an album, but he’s taken four years to carefully plot his course, and you can hear the care taken on all of the 16 tracks of his debut album, “Man of the North.”
Born in the Pacific Northwest, he’s quite used to storms, and it’s clear that he’s already survived a few as he lays his often troubled past open for inspection. Things kick off with ‘If I Were My Father,’ a particularly poignant song coming from a man who was raised by a single mother. The last line, “if I was my father, I would have just stayed away”, says a lot about his childhood. ‘Believer’ looks at a broken relationship with religion, while the title track sets off with a fiddle intro straight out of a spaghetti western before developing into a percussion-led swagger. It was written in one day in November 2023, and as he admits, “glued all the songs from the past four years together.” There’s a mixture of americana and rock on show here, which should please fans of both genres.
Guest Molly Tuttle brings a country edge and vocals to ‘Greyhound Bus Blues’, which rolls along nicely. In contrast, ‘Devil in Disguise’ featuring Houndmouth, is a slow country blues which asks, “Am I capable of changing, or am I bound by my mistakes?” Judging by the quality of the songwriting and the powerful vocals, whatever Liam St. John did in the past, he’s on the right track now.
