If the Ocean Gets Rough

iTunes Review

22-year old Martha’s Vineyard troubadour Willy Mason crafts a second album that continues the young wunderkind’s development as one of his generation’s most exciting songwriters. (His debut, Where the Humans Eat, recorded when Mason was just 19, is mature beyond its years.) Here, Rosanne Cash and his mom add harmonies, and his local friends bring cello and other natural sweeteners. But while the additional ingredients spice things up considerably, it’s Mason’s own likable dustbowl drawl that centers the endeavor. He sings somewhere halfway between Bob Dylan, Jonathan Richman and Beck, with a lazy and breezy indifference that’s at odds with his emotionally restless lyrical concerns. “Gotta Keep Walking” uses the leisurely pace of mid-tempo Ron Sexsmith to cloak its shuffling concerns. “The World That I Wanted” and “We Can Be Strong” sway with bright arrangements that offer optimism where fate attempts to trap the young bard. The horns that punctuate and the strings that saw through “Simple Town” reflect an underlying ambition that hint at Mason’s growing complexity as a writer and observer of life and music.