Another World

Album Review

New Zealand-by-way-of-Australia singer/songwriter Paul Turner presents ten songs in 29 minutes on his second album, Another World, much of which was recorded in Portland, OR. In one brief composition after another, he comes up with a delicate fingerpicked acoustic guitar riff, under which a discreet folk-rock arrangement led by a couple of celli plays, and over which he sings in his wistful tenor. Turner is a classic sensitive singer/songwriter, his simple, repetitive lyrics full of self-reflections that presume a state of disaffection and despair, out of which he encourages others, and himself, to emerge, if only through persistence. "Keep Fighting," he urges in a late song title, though in the final song, "Love Is Wise," he concludes, "All I live for is myself/What a state of mental health." For anyone with a sense of the lengthy history of songwriters who ruminate over the world's troubles and their own to the accompaniment of gentle folk-pop, it will be hard not to think of Nick Drake and to hope that Turner manages to confront his demons without getting too depressed about it.