Days to Recall

Album Review

On his U.S. debut, Canadian singer/songwriter Justin Hines has created a pastiche of folk-pop styles that incorporates, at various points, orchestral strings, a sort of lite-reggae groove, solo voice with guitar, and jangly guitar rock. The thread that gently binds these disparate elements together is Hines' sweet and sometimes rather androgynous voice, and his deceptively effortless-sounding way with a melodic hook. The album's first single, "Tell Me I'm Wrong," is an attractively gauzy piece of atmospheric folk-rock with strings and a banjo, while the title track's arrangement puts voice and piano at the center and surrounds them with subdued organ and gospel-flavored backing vocals. "Nothing Better Than Today" offers pitch-perfect guitar pop that evokes a less frantic Aztec Camera, while "Somewhere in the Middle" casually appropriates a reggae feel and almost gets away with it, but then falls flat with a half-hearted rap interlude in the middle. At several points in the program, Hines retreats from the more lavishly arranged material and delivers spare and subdued voice-plus-single-instrument performances, and these are invariably nice, but he really blossoms when his arrangements do, too. Overall, this is a very impressive effort from an exceptional young talent.