There’s a couple of passages on the title track that demand further exploration:
“Looks pretty as a picture but Lord knows it ain’t /‘Cause it’s hidden bottles and wasted dollars/And broken-hearted sons and daughters/ do you think we’re paying for the sins of our fathers still?”
Opines Sam Williams in the first verse. A thought he later follows up with: “I’d say I was forever changed after the fall of ’99/ I got exposed at two years old to demons in my mama’s eyes.”
And you know that the ghost of family hang over this more than most. Sam Williams is 22. This is his debut record. Yet, he sounds so world weary, an “old soul” as my nan would have put it, perhaps. Then there’s the weight of that name: Williams.
He’s the son of, the grandson of. He seems like he’s from the lost highway himself, as it were, because for much – most – of this he seems like he’s desperately searching for something.
Choosing singer/songwriter as a career given the legacy takes a considerable amount of chutzpah, after all. Even more so, when you consider that “Glasshouse Children” (and we mean the wider album now) isn’t remotely interested in “legacy” as much as forging its own future.
He’s worked with some of the best – Jaren Johnston is after all one of the top dogs in Nashville, as much as he’s in Cadillac Three – and there’s a sprinkling of the best writers and musicians that there is (notably Dan Auerbach of Black Keys) but this is emphatically not a country album – and you can underline that if you like.
Instead, the “…..Children” is awash with strings, and “Happy All The Time” (which features a truly brilliant cameo from Dolly Parton) sounds so fragile that you imagine it will crush under the merest touch.
Of course there’s touches of the dirt roads, but they are done entirely on their own terms. “Can’t Fool Your Own Blood” is magical in its depth and hesitance, all the while the pedal steel wails mournfully.
“Bulleit Blues” is 92 seconds that is delivered almost acapella, and given that it ends with the words “I sit here and drown in my own shame” you almost want to reach into the speakers and tell him everything will be ok.
“10-4” is more upbeat, and manages to find an uplifting chorus. If there’s a hit single here, you’d assume this one. Chase Rice could do this one – and you can’t say that about many. “Wild Girl” is another, perhaps, and it adds a dirtier, rockier edge. It is – in honesty – more the type of thing I’d assumed this record would be, and is a window perhaps into what it might have been in a parallel universe.
Keith Urban becomes the latest megastar to work with Williams on “Kids” – although, there aren’t many pop songs (which this really is) with the thought that: “Key’s under the mat to sneak back in and stumble through the kitchen/ Get sick on the floor/Pass out on the couch and don’t wake up ’til four.” And this is not your average pop star.
“Shuteye” is a ballad so claustrophobic you feel like you are intruding on grief. The true gift of this, though is that it sounds like such a sweet offering that you don’t notice. Not at first.
And if this is an album you can delve into, then one of its hidden treasures is buried down at the deep end, if you will. Towards the end of the record there’s a modern country thing (think Filmore if you want a ballpark) called “Hopeless Romanticism” which contains the thought: “Hopeless romanticism /It’s fucking narcissism/ I need to find a meeting and learn something about love addiction /I hope you fall in love and then you rip my heart out with him.” The pain is real, you know it is, so much so that the last one “The World: Alone” is relatively calm even though Williams is out on there, on its own while the love of his life is somewhere else, but always there.
Which brings us back to where we started, more or less. The ghosts of the past, of family, of life hang over this, just as they do around Sam Williams too. “Glasshouse Children” though, is more than that. It’s the sound of a brilliant new talent being born and not caring so much for legacy, for history and out to create his own.
Rating 9/10
