Part two of Bill Scorzari’s double-album project has him weaving from love lost to love kept and on the go.
Bill Scorzari is a former New York trial lawyer with a Walt Whitman beard that extends past his chest. In 2008, after witnessing a performance by Justin Townes Earle, he had a change of heart and became a full-time musician.
To date, he has five releases under his belt. This review covers the sixth: as it happens, it is the second half of a double album, Sidereal Days (Day 1), first released last year, and which received high praise from the likes of famed critic Robert Christgau and our own AUK. About the concept, Scorzari says: “As far as the title, Sidereal Days, I liked the concept of a pure descriptor of the moment when something returns to where it had previously been, without consideration of how it was otherwise moving. It seemed fitting for these two albums, which contain many earlier written songs that I chose to revisit and record at this time.”
Scorzari is a rambler: his lyrics are often spoken rather than sung. Both quietly and loudly roared is an apt description. At his best, such as in I Think It’s Gonna Rain, he evokes landscapes and moments: on the one hand, through lightning-speed description; on the other, tight weaves of acoustic guitar, piano, pedal steel. Backing vocals by Erin Rae pour in and out of earshot. There is wisdom about love lost, and love kept. Writing about the album’s first half, Robert Christgau relishes yet laments that Scorzari’s meditations linger mostly on failed romance, but Sidereal Days (Day 2) also highlights a gentle closeness, a knowledge of intimacy, as shown on opening track I Know You Know.
“And I love how I can talk with you and know the truth is always that you’re listenin’/And I love how when I’m searchin’, you can find me first and show me nothin’s missin’.”
However things failed, or however they thrived, Scorzari knows who and why. From Middle Class Middle Child:
“I got stuck in the middle of the road in the middle of the night/I’ve spent half my life in the grey between the black and white.”
And at times there is a certainty of feeling, even when things have collapsed, that doesn’t shy away from yearning, or painful requests, as in Sandcastles Waiting:
“When I breathe I still taste you/Won’t you?/Baby, please come home.”
There’s no fear in this collection of musical monologues. And but for the less-than-occasional words that ring too loud and too clear, the album is better for it.
