Peter Lawson is an artist from the UK who recently released Trees. Lawson has been in many bands over the years and this is his first solo effort. There are eight songs and they come in at around thirty-eight minutes. Stylistically the album is very varied and I definitely had some preferences.
Up first is “2020 Warfare'' which is basically acoustic folk song layered with psychedelic soundings synths. I think I would have enjoyed it with just guitar and vocals just as much if not more. There is a lot of hall reverb on the vocals. Overall, I thought this was a good song and a promising start. “Jonestown” sounded like a different artist. It's basically a programmed beat, a prominent bass line that changes slightly. There are a bunch of samples sprinkled throughout from presidential addresses to other cultural references. I liked the guitar and vocal work on “Black Water.” As a producer myself I thought the delay and reverb effects were a little too much at time. I just wanted to hear the natural, organic performance and felt like I was mostly listening to effects at points.. I ended up getting something with less effects on “Amon II” which is a highlight and thought the guitar and bass parts were great. His technical and creative skill is apparent on this song. It’s obvious Lawson has some skills on lead in particular. “Death’s Door” was not was I was expecting. It goes into sample based hip-hop. “Dream On'' goes back to his strength which is rock/folk based songs. “Pray” is distorted and chaotic sounding while “Trees” is at first more stripped down but blends with synths and other elements as it progresses. Lawson like everyone one else was at home during the pandemic and made the most of his free time. The whole album was DIY and as someone who has been engineering and producing bands for twenty years I have an ear for noticing lo-fi aesthetics. First off I give him kudos. On that note I would have loved to have heard some more fidelity on these recordings. Even if you can’t work with an engineer, an experienced mastering engineer can really help. I felt like his strength was guitar and vocals which were more rock and folk based. There were a lot of songs where I just wanted to hear more of him simply singing with his guitar. I would have put a touch of EQ, reverb and compression and let the songs breathe because when recordings are lo-fi like these stacking instrumentation is not your friend. It narrows the stereo fields, causes phase issues and masks essential frequencies. Overall, this is a solid DIY effort and with some specific songs that played into his strengths in my opinion. I’m looking forward to hearing more from him and wish him luck on his next release. Take a listen.
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