Ken Yates - Quiet Talkers (Album Review)
Sharing an easy-going vocal intimacy with Josh Rouse and Paul Simon, singer-songwriter Ken Yates’ new album is undeniably gentle on the ear. Spotlessly produced by multi-instrumentalist Jim Bryson (who also worked on Yates’ 2016 LP, Huntsville) there’s a light, west coast sheen to Yates’ brand of folky Americana. But, delve a little deeper and you’ll quickly find a sobering lyrical wisdom that’s not always synonymous with the genre.
The delicate fingerpicking of understated opener ‘Grey County Blues’ quickly finds itself at odds with the weight of the subject matter as it portraits a stoic, emotional numbness spread across the seasons of a year. Yates’ fine band arrive for the more upbeat rolling country of ‘Surviving Is Easy’, which details the monotony of managing the day-to-day when you’re really not managing at all. The concept of hope doesn’t really turn up until track three - the delightfully spare ‘Two Wrongs’ - and even then it’s hope smothered in heart-breaking resignation as Yates confesses: “I’m too shaky to lean on/Too tired to be strong/Too old to start again/Too young to believe it.”
As the album goes on, it continues to be strewn with struggle, regret and dreams so destined to be dashed that they really ought never to have been dreamed in the first place. However, the water-tight production, the impeccable playing and that voice come together to soften the blow of desolation every time. Whether you’re having to hear the hard truths of songs like ‘Pretend We’re Alright’ or ‘When We Came Home’ or you find yourself on the receiving end of the acerbic ‘Novelty’, at least you can take heart in the fact that Ken Yates went to some considerable trouble to make everything sound so serene.
While the back-handedly romantic pop of ‘Anchor and Sail’ and the pared-down ‘Evangeline’ offer more in the way of positivity, there’s sadness and loss at every turn. Yet all this bleakness is somehow made attractive - charming, almost - by the clarity of Yates’ thoughts and the honesty from which they stem. It’s refreshing that there are no fairy tale endings or easy answers here and there’s a neat irony in the way the album starkly reflects life’s inevitable disappointments in such glistening sonic waters.
It’s not often that we come across a record as meticulously played and as carefully crafted as this and, while Yates’ words may be sometimes painful to hear, the songs remain an unbridled joy to listen to. In a cacophonous world, Quiet Talkers offers a refuge of soft-spoken sanity and, amid all the raised voices, Ken Yates’ is one that definitely deserves to be heard.
Review by Rich Barnard
While it’s hardly unusual for a songwriter, or songwriters in this case, to revisit songs that were semi-forgotten or seemingly doomed to live forever in a dusty notebook or on some long-since obsolete hard drive (Chris and Glenn strike me as very much old school ruled notebook types). I’m sure you never know when or how inspiration will strike, and there’ll be the odd gem ripe for rediscovery. With ‘Trixies’, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook have taken this idea to its extreme, bringing a complete album - a concept album or rock opera, if you will - written while they were in their teens, back to life. The result is a record sure to please Squeeze fans old and new.