You can’t accuse Chuck Melchin of letting the grass grow.
Since calling time on The Bean Pickers Union and setting his horizons on The Bluest Sky, “Birdland” is already his fourth release in just three years. That is some going by anyone’s standards, but it speaks to something deeper too. Melchin sounds like a writer with songs still pouring out of him, and more importantly, like someone who knows exactly what to do with them.
“A revolving cast of top-shelf regional players helps bring Melchin’s songs to life on stage and in the studio,” runs the line, and that might explain the breadth of the material on view here. “Birdland” never feels boxed in. It moves with the ease of musicians who understand each other, who know when to step forward, when to pull back, and when simply to let the song do the work.
That last bit matters, because Melchin’s music has always seemed to come from the song first. There is craft here, certainly, and plenty of it, but it never feels like a record showing off for the sake of it. Instead, “Birdland” has the relaxed confidence of people who have been around long enough to know that the best trick is not making it look like a trick at all.
The result is an album with warmth, space and a real sense of character. It has that lived-in quality that only comes from music lifers: the sort of record that does not need to shout about its authenticity because it has it in the grain. There are roots here, there is country-rock, there is Americana, and there is a classic songwriting instinct running through the whole thing, but “Birdland” never feels like it is simply ticking genre boxes.
Instead, it feels open. That is perhaps the point of The Bluest Sky as a project. There is a wideness to it, a sense that Melchin has given himself room to roam, and the songs benefit from that freedom. The players around him bring colour and movement, but the centre holds because the writing does.
And maybe that is why “Birdland” lands so well. It sounds like an album made by someone who still believes in albums, still believes in songs, and still believes there is another horizon worth chasing.
The future is bright, or it should be, for The Bluest Sky, because this music lifer has made his “Birdland” fly.
Rating: 8.5/10
