Chase Thompson – Shoot You Down

Chase Thompson – Shoot You Down / 2007 Self / 5 Tracks / http://www.chasethompsonmusic.com / Reviewed 04 June 2007

The title track starts off this EP, and it provides a somber bit of piano to open up things. What style Chase Thompson plays is not immediately known from the piano line, but what ultimately results is a style that makes heavy use of the piano line. The style is a slow style in the vein of Gary Jules, and the vocals provide a narrative while riding on top of this piano line. The track gradually adds other bits and pieces, making “Shoot You Down” into a more soulful version of Frey-type rock. The melodies are surprisingly not only provided from the piano lines, but are created from the vocals.

The track may be slightly longer than most normal tracks, but there seems to be enough in the way of different instrumental movements to keep things fresh. All I know is by the time that “Shoot You Down” ends, I want to keep listening. For an artist that is new to me, that is perhaps the strongest entrance to a disc I can find. “Blue Lillies” is another track along the same vein, slower, more emotional, and pretty much is limited to the vocalist and a paucity of instruments. Regardless of how Spartan these tracks may be, Chase Thompson creates beauty in simplisticity. The tracks could use a little bit more dramatic contrast and bombast, but Thompson does well in creating brilliance with these small tracks. There are no direct links that I could draw to other artists, as when I sat down to listen to “Shoot You Down”, I heard Chase Thompson and only Chase Thompson.

This EP was not Thompson trying to ape specific styles of music to make it big, but rather to provide emotionally full and interesting tracks of a style that is familiar but is ultimately different from anything else that is currently on the market. It may be a little bit of trouble to extend this style to ten or eleven tracks in a LP format, but I believe that more things are up Thompson’s sleeve, and that we will hear more and more from this artist until ey settles into a level of fame of the same caliber as Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds. You may not even like this style of music, but I believe that you, given the chance, will be able to find something beautiful and wondrous about the music that Thompson comes out with here on “Shoot You Down”.

Top Track: Blue Lillies

Rating: 6.4/10

[JMcQ]