Peter Walker

Young Gravity

(Dangerbird)

Record Review by Amber Henson

Once again, I find myself questioning the press release of an album I am to review.  This time, it was for Peter Walker’s sophomore album, Young Gravity.  The press release kept mentioning “the human condition.”  I decided to get the precise definition of this term from (where else?) Wikipedia. “The ongoing way in which humans react to or cope with events that are common to most human lives is the human condition.”  Ah.  Thank you, Wikipedia.  As always, you were very useful.  But, as always, you also used up a lot of my time as I kept linking to other articles on you.

Anyway, back to this human condition stuff.  Okay, events that are common to most human lives—like love and death and, according to Mr. Walker, lost earrings, as heard on the track “Preacher.”  But love and death are definitely addressed, too.  Walker, whose voice is scratchy in that Jimmy Buffett kind of way (except far less silly) takes us through an electric guitar based journey through this “human condition.”  Most songs have a digitally composed background (I would imagine this man tours with his iBook) and are occasionally overproduced.  But his upbeat songs are catchy, and his slow ones are haunting.

What’s interesting about this album when compared to his first effort, Landed, is that he hasn’t departed from his original sound, but rather moved forward with it.  And I think that’s what makes a good follow up album, one where you can still hear the artist the way you know them, but you can tell that they’ve grown up, that they’ve learned from their mistakes, and have produced something better.  That’s usually more pleasing than an artist abandoning their old sound for something new just because it might be the flavor of the week.