If the first song is anything to go by, “To Make You Cry” is aptly named.
“Death Of A Good Man” is raw and heartbreaking—a beautifully brutal track about the death of a stranger—as Evan Bartels finds a cracked, near-broken tone.
It is a quite astonishing way to start your major label debut. And there’s little doubt that Bartels is a rare talent—and we can say that because he writes and co-produces the six songs here.
And, remarkably, they are all as good as the opener. “Lula” is the type of character-based songwriting that always brings to mind Springsteen in his “Ghost Of Tom Joad” or “Devils And Dust” eras, dealing as it does with the stories of those everyone else would forget.
Recorded in a cabin in Nashville, it’s as raw as it gets. “Montana” deals with the effects of a child’s suicide as the lap steel wails, while the harmonica only reinforces the feelings of The Boss.
Also, we are only in on a part of these stories. The desolate “The Highway” finds an escape, as so many times before—but what it’s running from is a depression that may or may not be cured.
The title track repeats the phrase “It’ll be alright, just hold on a little longer” as if he’s trying to convince himself, and the half-spoken tones make it almost confessional.
“Waves” finds no happy ending. “Walking on a tightrope” and “digging my own grave,” he says (you can’t really call it singing), as he takes us deep into his personal pain.
Whether these songs are cathartic—and whether the feelings that “come and go in waves” ever truly leave—is open to question. What isn’t is that “To Make You Cry” is a fabulous—if perhaps one-paced—EP, and one which proves beyond doubt that you don’t need to be loud and bombastic to be heavy.
Rating: 8.5/10
