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Milo Jones: Lifeline
[self-released]

This album has nineteen tracks.  Each of the nineteen tracks sports Milo and a guitar.  Sometimes there is a harmonious attempt with multiple guitars, and nine times out of ten, the guitar sound is luscious and pretty.  However, the repetitiveness unfortunately sets in pretty quickly along with the thought that there cant possibly be nineteen tracks of this stuff. 

It was rather unfortunate that I tried to listen to this on my way to work on the train one morning, because it just kept putting me to sleep.  However, this led me to believe that Lifeline would be a nice, sleepy nighttime album for playing Scrabble by the fire.

There were two things I noticed right away upon each listen of Lifeline.  The first was the nature of the guitar accompaniment and how it sounded as if it were coming from an old record player.  Particularly the opening track, Undertow, sounded a little off-kilter.  The next is that his voice, while generally of good quality, had an oddity about it.  He frequently tried to dip below his natural range and ended up sounding rather devilish.  The worst part is that it occurred in every song, no matter how much I kept hoping he would magically figure out how to use his interesting voice to his advantage.

I find it difficult to single out favorites, as this album sounded consistently the same in tempo, mood and music.  However, one song stood out to me as one that seemed to fit his voice well.  While the City Sleeps has his voice dipping down into the lower range, but unlike the rest of the album, he hits just the right low note without going overboard. 

Milo Jones truly does have a great voice, but in this album it feels like he is playing around and testing the vocal waters.  While it may be good for people to stray outside of their vocal comfort bubble, sometimes its really best to keep it to a minimum.  When this technique is used throughout an entire album (especially one of this length) it can feel tired and uninteresting to the audience.  I would encourage Jones to be careful not to overdo it when exploring his vocal abilities; and perhaps he should break out of the comfort zone even further and try some different styles to infuse with his mellow, folk approach to liven it up a bit.

Milo Jones Official Website

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