Enjoy the Ride

Folk? Country? Rock? Country blues? That’s pretty much what I was asking myself with the majority of Zach Broocke’s songs from the album Enjoy The Ride: Solo Writes 2001-2012. By the third trip around of listening to his album I’ve settled on it being a folk/country/blues style music. Once I did pin down what style he was I gave the album another spin to listen to his lyrics so I could get a feel for the songs themselves. What I heard were songs that had some sort of meaning but any strength the songs would have had was lost because of the vocals.
What turned me off of these songs was that lack of energy and power in Zach Broocke’s voice. I could hear in the lyrics and somewhat in the vocals that he is trying to have the song sound soulful, meaningful, and being able to make a impact on the listener. Thing is, I don’t get any of these from listening to the songs. Though I know he might want these feelings to be in the songs I can hear it when he’s singing. What it sounds like to me is if he is performing the songs like he wants to have fun singing them and that he wants them to be these powerful, soulful songs but he just don’t quite know how to make them that way.
Aside from the lack of the songs being fun to listen to and having very little energy behind them, how they are played isn’t that bad. Zach Broocke might not have the energy in his vocals to make the songs fun but his voice stays in tune, he’s not going out of key, and he has the potential to be a good country singer if he could just add that energy to his songs. As for the instrumentals, they’re almost not heard over the vocals. It’s almost like they don’t want the instruments to be heard that well and they’re not. However, when they are heard the clearest, which is at the beginning of the songs, they pretty much keep the same tone as the vocals. They’re played with some skill but they seem to be lacking the energy in them to make them fun. Pretty much this album is one that made me feel like if there was just a little more emotion put into the songs then it would have been a lot better but after all the times I listened to it my mood stayed the same.