Los Angeles singer/songwriter Albert Kass has finally revealed a debut album two decades in the making with the arrival of Young Old Man. It marks his long and winding road back to music — one that runs parallel to a bittersweet journey from adolescence into adulthood. The album resembles as much a vivid introspection as it does an attempt to peer ahead for a way forward. Balancing the tender emotional forte of his resilient vocals with taut strings of acoustic guitars and upright bass.
The result is an album that quakes with visceral emotional intimacy and vulnerability. On the spacious and devastating “Shallow Sea,” Kass hollows himself out against the resonance of a few gentle strums. “Downward” kicks up the pace to a light gallop with its earnest percussion and tangle of guitar strings. But even upbeat Kass is foreboding and even haunting, the song tracing the experience of watching someone you love spiral helplessly. While the similarly jaunty “Haunt” sees him wrestling with latent anger and a desire for vindication.
“Same Lie” is a dazzling jumble of riffs that sees Kass unfurling his breathy vocals to their full breadth, weaving their buoyant cries into the song’s frantic melody. “Who knows, we might be living the same lie / Can you believe? This shit’s been normalized,” he muses uneasily. The latter half of Young Old Man coalesces around the full force of his all-consuming minimalism.
“The Void” is a sublime meeting of guitars, the bowing of upright bass, and dulcet percussion that aids Kass in delving into his murkiest fears. Then there’s the brooding heartache that gloams on the soul-wrenching ballad “Awake,” twinkling around his withering words. It all comes to a close on the album’s most affecting track, “Formidable,” one that propels you out from under the sometimes soothing, sometimes gloomy shade of self-reflection into the radiance of the future.
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Words: Steven Ward
Listen to Young Old Man the new album from Albert Kass below!
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