Gregory Alan Isakov

I'm going to skip the suspenseful foreplay and tell you in the first sentence: THIS album is the best and most beautiful album you will hear this year. 

I'm talking painful, blissful and emotional beauty. 

All of the above and at the same time. 

I'm talking erect pimples on your epidermis. I'm talking about the type of music that makes you content to listen in an uncomfortable chair as you stair into nothingness. 

I'm talking an album so amazing that it's fucking up my listening habits. Normally I keep a playlist of new music for review, but I only want to listen to Gregory Alan Isaov (GAI). If I try to listen to new music, I quickly get annoyed and go straight back to GAI. I've already moved past shaming myself for re-starting the album immediately after a full time through and have resorted to hitting the repeat album button because I JUST DON'T CARE ANYMORE. 

I'm going to let this album take me wherever it wants to take me. I'll let its seductive feelz estrange me from other music. I will lie sprawled out naked on the bed for this album and tell it to do what it pleases.

My body is its wonderland. 

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I must admit that I've never heard of Gregory Alan Isakov even though he has 3 albums out since 2007 and almost 100k Facebook followers, which we all know is the best indicator of one's worth. 

Back in 2013 GAI performed his normally stripped down songs with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver. The success of this show led to a couple of more shows with CSO and other Orchestras and now an album.

So, the songs that you are hearing on this album are in some cases almost 10 years old, but refined with orchestral arrangements. In their original state, I'd imagine that that GAI parallels that singer/songwriter steezo you'd hear from artists like Leonard Cohen or Josh Ritter; artists who have a gift for words and an uncanny ability to paint a vibrant picture with just lyrics, a guitar and intimacy because that is all they need. So naturally when you add an entire orchestra into the mix, the feelz are welcomingly overwhelming. That vibrant picture is now in 3D and weeping on your face. 
 
Yet, nothing feels out of place. The orchestra is not over powering and the songs still feel intimate. The pairing feels more like an Elbow or Sigur Ros album versus that one time when Metallica recorded a live album with a symphony. And what I mean by that is the arrangements don't sound like an afterthought....they feel like a part of the songs. If I didn't read the bio, I'd think that this is how GAI recorded all his shit. 

The result of this pairing leaves me in a puddle of sappy, sappy goo. If any album is able to make my stomach do a somersault once, then I consider that a victory. THIS album makes my stomach do at least one somersault on every single track. It's a fucking gymnastics class in there. Whether it's on the build in the first track as he repeats the realization "Now, we're just Liars" over and over again OR at the 2.25 mark of 'Master and Hound' when it seems like the last breath he can muster exhales out as a falsetto plea surrounded by swirling strings OR just the ominous slamming of the drums on 'That Sea, The Gambler' OR I could on an on. 

Most albums are defined by a moment or two. Gregory Alan Isakov with The Colorado Symphony Orchestra is a collection of momentous moments. I have seriously listened to this album every morning for the last 2 weeks and it has made every single day better, which means it has made my life better. And I'm not trying to be melodramatic; this shit is self help in the form of music. 

I can not urge you enough to find a time when you are feeling reflective, sit down and listen to this album. Perhaps a time when the lighting is dim. Perhaps when you are outside watching a storm rolling in. Perhaps when you are not imagining me sprawled out on a bed in the nudez. 

Gregory Alan Isakov with The Colorado Symphony Orchestra is out on June 10th; you ca pre-order here and he will start his tour on that same date.