Sam Barron

Sam Barron, NYC songwriter, wrote the songs for his latest release, Chasing the Devil, in all-night creative convulsion. The album, recorded in LA at New Monkey Studio with producer Charles Newman, features the keyboard playing of Ben Stivers and the drumming of Butch Norton.

Chasing the Devil focuses on the theme of being mired in, and occasionally overcoming, systemic attacks on the human soul. As per the titular track:

I’m not gonna worry, I’m not gonna push. I’m letting it all in, the good and the bad.

Sonically, the record finds its low end in the left hand of Stivers who plays the bass lines on an analogue synth. With his right hand, Stivers layers the album with melodies contrived on the classic Mellotron.

Lyrically, Barron is at the height of his powers dropping hooky bombs that defy the pop aesthetic in songs like Goldfish:

When the rats cross the platform and the train comes in. When the clowns declare that it is spring. And the rain puts a jewel into the crown of everything as the wallflowers learn to sing…All your words go swimming in my head

Joining him in harmony is Elizabeth Ziman (of the Catapult) and together their voices mesh heavenly.

Chasing the Devil leaves the listener wondering in which direction the Devil is being chased. As much as the songs speak of redemption, they also flirt with sin in songs like Cheap Champagne:

Everybody’s high on cheap champagne, light beer, whiskey, cigarettes and cocaine. Stay high all the time and never come down.

Everywhere The Great Deceiver is present, manifest as digital tyranny in the alt country song Path of Sparrows:

Loose dimes on the sidewalk, nobody wants the change. They killed the cash king; check mated his game. They want to know everything, until none of it makes sense.

Listening to Chasing the Devil, one gets the feeling we are all in a dire battle to preserve our humanity and that the music within is one of our last weapons.