| Plan B | 2003 |
J. Armen is a singer/songwriter who specializes in low-key acoustic stuff, as evidenced by his debut Plan B reviewed below. I guess this is yet another one of these reviews I'm doing in the unofficially titled 'bribery review' series - I swear, one of these days I'm gonna have to do one on some band or artist who's totally crap, and I personally dread that day. Luckily, J. Armen definitely isn't crap - he has far too much of a gift for melody and a way of getting inside your soul the way he uses his voice, and his extensive musical background prior to his solo career (he was once in a band called Medicine Hat, among other projects) definitely shows at the earliest point in his solo career. But that's for below. For more info, check out http://www.jarmen.net/, and I'd like to thank him for sending me this album.
--Nick Karn
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: The Epic, Waiting For Mine. LOW POINTS: None really, other than it feels a bit too short.
J. Armen's debut may not strike the average listener as anything that special at first - his acoustic-based sound is often unassuming and the production is light enough that it can almost be mistaken for 'adult contemporary' (as fellow reviewer Steve Knowlton pegged it). But on future listens, I really started noticing the secret weapon on Plan B that does separate it from your average singer-songwriter album - his vocals, and the way he expertly builds his melodies around the intonations of them. The skills of his guitar work and talent of his backing band are definitely there as well, but they probably won't jump out at the average listener - repeated listenings will bring out some of the neat creative touches in the sound. It's his voice that does it for me, though - on a technical level it's nothing special, but it has so much character that it's easy to appreciate the introspection and emotion of the lyrics, which are well-written while rarely resorting to any trite 'personal' cliches.
As for the songs themselves, most of them are built around a similar low-key formula, which makes them a bit tough to describe, but there are a couple welcome deviations.here. The most noticeable one is definitely the opener "Dancing Maria", a false impression of what comes later - you really get a strong Latin flavor in the music here, everything from the vocal melody, the trumpet playing, the overall rhythm, and even some of the lyrics sung in Spanish during the chorus (a chorus that's definitely one of the catchiest on the album). Elsewhere, there's my personal favorite "The Epic", which through its' wonderful layering of acoustic and electric guitars and uncertain feeling, really does get a certain epic atmosphere to it. The vocals work their typical magic, and the haunting use of opera singers as a bridge between the verses and choruses is another nice touch.
Probably the best stuff out of the rest includes "Got To Be Going", a good mix between personal songwriting and pop snappiness - I love the little acoustic touches after he sings the title in the chorus. Plus, my other personal favorite "Waiting For Mine" has beautiful melodic twists that can make the listener feel they're floating down the river, and indeed, he does use the 'river' metaphor for personal troubles. Watch out for those vocals aiming at your soul again too, particularly during the briskly-sung refrain - he's good at that stuff! And dig that flute solo! The closing live cut "Fallen Angel" is quite captivating too, as it's the only one given a stripped down vocals/guitar arrangement, with some Dylan-ish overtones in the lyrics and melody. The remaining three songs on here ("Stay Away", "'Til Georgia", and "10 To 10") are also perfectly enjoyable - good use of background vocals in the last two of these especially - though they're a little more samey and don't quite captivate me as much emotionally as a lot of the other tracks do.
In all, an enjoyable effort by someone who clearly has a lot of songwriting potential and more passionate performances in him, and this could get an even higher rating than a very solid 7, not far off from 7.5, if there was a bit more variety, and it was a little longer (I'm pretty sure "Fallen Angel" might be a 'bonus' track, and if you take that out of the picture the album comes to just over 33 minutes). A nice album overall. I'm wondering something, though - why does the All Music Guide list this album as being released in 1992 under the 'electronica' genre, and why are there three different copyright dates listed on the back (1992, 1997, 2003)? Maybe someone in the J. Armen camp can answer that one.
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COMMENTS
Hi Nick,
I am writing to personally thank you for reviewing Plan B and for being so thorough. I could tell that you really did your research when you mentioned Steve Knowltons review and the All Music Guide mistakes.
There are many mistakes on that posting, including spelling mistakes on musicians’ names, not to mention the genre and the copyright date. We sent the CD to them hoping to get a review, instead we found it posted on their site under the wrong category. I sent them numerous emails hoping that they will at least correct the genre, release year and the spelling mistakes, but so far nothing has happened (not reviewed and not corrected).
To explain the copyright years 1992, 1997 and 2003 that appear on the CD- There are two songs which were both written and copyrighted a while back. One copyright dates back to 1992 and another one to 1997, and the entire Plan B collection was copyrighted in 2003. To cover all bases we put all three on the CD.
I hope that this answers all your questions.
So… with a big smile on my face-
Cheers and many thanks
J. Armen
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