“The Condor” is the first solo offering in a decade from The Mercy Union’s Jared Hart, and it comes from tragedy.
He lost one of his oldest, dearest friends and wanted to put all his emotions down, which is what we have here.
The term “singer-songwriter”—like all musical genres, I guess—is so broad that it encompasses work as varied as Bob Dylan and Chuck Ragan.
That thought strikes you again when listening to “The Condor,” the track that gives this album its name. Muscular guitars and rasping vocals, together with the hook that suggests that “it’s gonna be one of those nights, I can see it in your eyes.”
Look, if this contains multitudes, as it were, then the everyday is chief among them.
It’s punk rock—almost. That’s why Ragan was mentioned; he’d be pleased to have the opener as one of his, and that’s before the quite brilliant “Allnighters.”
Jared Hart is from New Jersey. I’m sure there’s a singer-songwriter from there, but I can’t place his name (ahem!), but if the “Jersey sound” is here, then I’d venture that it’s the Gaslight Anthem that would spring to mind.
And speaking of broad horizons, then the highlight here (amongst a quartet of utter gems, it has to be said) is the utterly glorious, acoustic-tinged Americana of “So It Goes.” “There’s a lot of love in that double-wide,” he sings, and this—honestly—is as good as it gets, right down to its uplifting end, which almost demands we believe better is on the way.
“Come Back To Earth” (a Mac Miller cover) contrasts that by confronting bleakness and looking “for a way out,” but in truth, it doesn’t make any difference what Hart does (and there’s a touch of soul about the last one that had been hitherto hidden); it is all done with such class and skill.
A fitting tribute to that friend, who Hart describes as “larger than life, and that void just can’t be replaced,” and it seems trite to say it, it but is no less true: my goodness me, “The Condor” flies.
Rating 9/10
REVIEW: JARED HART – THE CONDOR (2025)
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