Daniel Levene is an artist who apparently recorded his album Drown Out in a sound booth. The young artist brings mostly a guitar and his voice to the table.
He opens with “Skyline” where you are greeted to solo guitar and vocals that spew with melancholy, The first observation is that he sounds a lot like Matt Berninger from The National. In fact the structure of the song felt similar to The National. As a producer and engineer I recommend staying away from drum sounds that just sound like loops from a DAW that I heard on “About You. I personally would rather have that replaced by a real shaker, handclaps or something which sounds less artificial. “King” was a solid song. It is just guitar and vocals but has a memorable melody. It’s like Levene switches to his Matt Berninger type voice on “Architect” He goes into a baritone and mimics the inflection which at times sound almost identical. “Final Choir” is a piano led song while “Maple” felt like a vocal style that seemed to feel a little more natural. “Driftwood” is another acoustic track while “A Shot in the Dark” was fleshed out with more instrumentation. “Getting By,” “Row” and “Open Arms” have a similar feel to them. “Relief” has its moments as does the reflective “Famed” and ”I'll Be Fine.” About twenty years ago I was a senior in high school and really got into Smashing Pumpkins. Although I had been studying music for five years already they were such an influence that the songs I would write would sound like Smashing Pumpkins B-sides. The truth is Levene seems to be experiencing something very similar with The National at times. There is simply no denying the influence of the band across this release. My advice here is to not listen to music in general (or keep it minimal)l when songwriting and keep experimenting and digging through your emotions until you find a strain that can’t so easily be conflated with another artist. At this point I encourage him to explore more advanced chord structure, guitar picking and other technical exercises while chipping away at his songwriting. I promise that this is just the embryonic stage for him considering his age and he will slowly evolve. It took me years of education and dedication to playing every day to get a point where I felt like I could call myself a musician. Despite all that Levene has some chops in the songwriting department. There were some memorable melodies throughout the album and I really appreciated his ability to cut the fat off of a song. This is a solid display of talent and I wish Levene all the best in his evolution as an artist.
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