Patrick Park

Come What Will

(Badman)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

Badman Recording Co. has either launched or furthered the careers of a number of riveting songwriters – a list that includes My Morning Jacket and Mark Kozelek, as well as the lesser known but heartily Red Alert-recommended likes of WEINLAND and Hayden.  On Come What Will, Park proves himself worthy of joining that latter group. 

On my first few listens, I found a few tracks that I enjoyed – and that would remain my favorites (more on those in a moment) – but thought Park was in danger of being unassuming to a fault.  There may not be a single strained moment on the record; every arrangement, vocal and lyric seems carefully considered and controlled, without ever falling into sterility (credit to both Park and Dave Trumfio).  The flipside is that there also aren’t a lot of showstopper moments, or songs that diabolically set up shop in the subconscious for weeks on end.

The sadsack “You Were Always The One” is one of the standout moments on the album, and it’s an important one at that, proving Park plenty commanding with little more than his vivid voice and an acoustic guitar.  It transitions nicely into “Starry Night,” a graceful and nostalgic daydream about simpler times (“Everyone’s making me promises that burn like city lights / But I’d trade every single one of ‘em for a starry night”).  It’s another time-honored tale, sort of an indie-country spin on Journey’s “Faithfully” or Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page,” with its imagery of strange parades (or circus lives and Nebraskan highways) pulling the singer away from matters of the heart.  The song may not be completely autobiographical – it’s hard to imagine that Park is in such Bieber-like demand that he can’t escape from the insanity for a starry night or two – but his style is such that every line sounds deeply personal.  That’s become recurring praise for these gifted Badman singer/songwriters.  Come What Will has some uneven spots, but goes down comfortably as another success for label and artist alike.