A second career retrospective album from the much-admired Canadian singer-songwriter helps complete his musical backstory, spanning over 25 years.
With over 25 years in the music business under his belt, Julian Taylor has built an impeccable reputation as a truly independent artist and entrepreneur. Now in possession of his own legacy, stretching right back to his formative days with the rock band Staggered Crossing, through to the genre-fused sounds of the Julian Taylor band and finally his new, much-admired solo singer-songwriter albums, Taylor is in the position to offer up a retrospective overview of his career to date. The first stage of this project began back in 2023 with the release of “Anthology Vol. 1” and is completed here with the 21-track follow-up, unsurprisingly entitled “Anthology II”.
Much like the previous retrospective album, the songs here are presented in a reverse-chronological order, with the most recent single releases appearing as the opening four tracks. The newest song, ‘Hunger’, written by Graeme Williamson, kicks off proceedings and is, in essence, a simple folk song in the tradition of the great folk songs of the late 1950s, early 1960s, gentle in its delivery but mighty in its message. A strummed acoustic guitar intro jousts with some playful pedal steel before Taylor’s vocals deliver a poetic narrative that gradually builds to almost hymnal proportions, with the addition of some sublime backing vocals from Michelle Stodart. From there, we get the clarion call of ‘Don’t Let ‘Em’ that features Jim James, followed by the wonderful ‘Dedication’ recorded with Taylor’s fantastic UK band, which comprises Stodart on bass, along with Raevennan Husbandes on electric guitar, and Sian Monaghan on drums. The last of the opening quartet is ‘Tulsa Time’, the old Don Williams song, which here features Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy.
The following eight tracks are drawn from Taylor’s last three solo albums, starting with “Pathways”, of which the title track, featuring backing vocals from Alison Russell, is included here. Three tracks from Taylor’s 2022 album release “Beyond The Reservoir” follow, including two live favourites in ‘100 Proof’ and ‘Stolen Lands’, before two songs from his breakthrough album “The Ridge”, including the title song, bring this period to a close.
Whereas those previous songs should already be familiar to fans of Taylor’s recent recordings, the remainder of this album jumps back a whole decade, completely skipping the albums that were released as the Julian Taylor band. Though, to be fair, this period was well covered on the first anthology album. Instead, the focus shifts to Taylor’s fledgling musical years and the alt-rock band Staggered Crossing, which he co-founded in 1996, whilst still a teenager. On the release of their eponymous debut album in 2001, the band achieved instant chart success in their homeland of Canada with two hit singles, ‘Further Again’ and ‘A Million Works Of Art’, both of which feature here, as do two other tracks that were originally only available on the album’s 20th Anniversary re-release. The band went on to release two further albums, each represented here by two tracks, before they disbanded. Following their dissolution, many of the songs Taylor had left from those years would appear on the low-key album release “Black Tape Levy”, which to date has never been available on streaming services, but is represented here by the excellent ‘Emily’ a song that lyrically inhabits a similar orbit to folk legend Richard Thompson but with a strong 1960s psychedelic rock vibe, with a just a hint of The Beatles.
With “Anthology II“, Taylor has impeccably filled in the spaces left by 2023’s “Anthology Vol. 1“, creating the perfect companion piece that, collectively, brings together the very best of his musical legacy on two albums, thus provides the ideal introduction to those new to his music whilst still offering much for the established fan to discover and enjoy.
