Label: Dew Process
Released: 21st May 2021
Tyne-James Organ manifests a lifetime of gruelling experiences into a delicately crafted debut record with ‘Necessary Evil’, an album exploring themes like death and grief through an insightful lens and expressing his outlook with a gravelly, raw performance that elevates his reflective songwriting.
Tyne-James’ songs bring rock tones into a world of sadness to inspire hope in his listeners, and in this mission, he is certainly successful; there is an undeniable emotional power that shines through across the 12 tracks on this album. Overflowing walls of screeching guitar and reverberating bass gradually build up to an anthemic vibe throughout.
‘Not Ready For Love’, a tune mourning a relationship now gone, is truly the pinnacle of the record and a great example indeed of Tyne-James wrapping heartbreak in an engulfing and slick sonic environment. His pure message shines through the smooth guitar lines and building drum layers to revel in his past experiences, despite the sombre lyrical nature.
The chilled energy found on songs like ‘Overtime’ make this the perfect listen to wind down at sunset on an autumn evening – a mix of ballads and thrashing indie-rockers keep the energy levels fairly tamed, with the subdued atmosphere allowing the gravelly, textured vocal delivery to command your attention. These melodies play out over the course of long, ebbing and flowing instrumentation sections which are themselves easy to feel absorbed into.
Tyne-James Organ delivers a solid debut with strong songwriting. The long-play format is fleshed out well and hits more than it misses, but lacks experimentation and diversification. Even the standout tracks do fall into some clichés, but the man behind the music has a voice that is hard to ignore.