By Brandon Henry
Rising out of the debris of life’s wreckage is AM Stryker’s The Lion’s Share, a gorgeous collection of songs that are as comforting as rain on a Sunday. The record is a lush, contemplative album that soaks to the core of your consciousness and lures you in for quiet reflection. With sparse instrumentation and a less is more approach, A.M. Stryker delivers nine powerful songs of pain, loss, grief, and eventually letting go.
His resonate vocals, finely crafted lyrics and gentle production parallels the mellow hippness of the Kings of Convenience and Jose Gonzalez, while echoing the classic, rich sound of the iconic Scottish folk troubadour Archie Fisher.
From the opening song “A Breath Let Go” to the tragic closing title track, you get the sense that these songs come from a cataclysmic shift that life tends to deliver.
“This Heavenly Stone” mixes a bouncing guitar riff with banjo, while “Winter and the Way We Met” weaves in a heartbreaking cello that adds a sonic depth to the vivid lyrics. The title track concludes and finds the singer taking “the lion’s share” of blame for a relationship that fell apart and a love that was “never really there.” There’s a loneliness that floats from verse to verse, but in the end a sense of relief from letting go.
The complexity of an album like The Lion’s Share is in balancing the depth of these lyrics without pulling the listener into the depths, but rather guiding them on their own reflective journey. AM Stryker does this with a clarity and honesty through his soul-stirring lyrics that leave you breathless after each listen.
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