Jeff Bryant takes the leap to centre stage and makes his brilliant debut solo album, Sleeping With The Lights On.
Many may know him from his fine keyboard skills with the mighty Alpha Rev, among others, but with a few songs of his own under his belt (and a big push from his wife!) the musician from Texas embarked on getting his own album together and in February 2018, it finally got its release!
Sleeping With The Lights On is a 7 track album that runs just short of half an hour but definitely doesn't sell you short in lack of quality. Not Gonna Run draws you straight in from the first note. This is an instantly likeable opener with a damn catchy chorus!
Jeff seems to effortlessly switch between different genres on this album going from fun-filled 'almost' pop songs to some fine chilled out acoustic based tracks. Let It In does just that and you can imagine chilling on a sunny afternoon or taking a summers evening road trip with this as the soundtrack.
The title track, Sleeping With The Lights On,
is the albums first ballad style song and begins with an easy piano 'lullaby' slowly building up to a mighty guitar solo before dropping us back down to a restful ease. If its all going wrong, put this on and get a musical cuddle. It'll all be alright in the end.
Now that we're feeling better after the last track, we get a little uplift further still with Addie, a 90's pop-funk vibe with a sweet, sweet solo...and that's a good thing. Trust me. If you want a track that just seems to throw everything at you, then take a listen to You Don't Know. Another catchy number that gets your foot tapping and head bobbing before slowing it down to some smooth jazz breakdowns and a screaming guitar solo outro.
The very talented and multi-instrumentalist then tells us how he met Grace today. A soft, sweet ballad that beautifully takes the tempo down for a little while and lets us breath easy for four fine minutes.
But the easy listening doesn't last for long. Goodbye reminds me of a classic Supertramp opener before sweeping you along in another 90's style sing-along, dance-along power pop tune.
Jeff is musically and lyrically a superb song writer and I certainly hope that that isn't goodbye from him. I hope there will be many more albums to follow. There must be!
GnT's go to tracks - Not Gonna Run & Sleeping With The Lights On GnT Rating - 5/5
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