Peer Validated

Pictured: Not quite Bono.

Solo singer-songwriters playing acoustic guitar aren’t exactly in overwhelming demand. Nobody’s really pining for old men with flowing white hair either. Production of such men are exceedingly high though, with open mic nights and dusty old record shelves being filled to the brim.

That said, Sam Baker is a solo singer-songwriter with flowing white hair who released one of the most introspective and vastly deep albums of the past year. Pretty World moves along slowly and gives listeners plenty of time to think about the stories in the songs. Most of the lyrics come off as vague pieces of poetry, small verses that suggest manically huge themes.

Baker’s broken and slightly odd singing style is an effect of a terrorist bombing that he was in while on a train in Peru. The explosion killed eight others on the train and left him deaf in one ear with only partial hearing in the other. His voice comes off like the slurs of drunks do, disoriented and searching for the next pitch, but that somehow helps the album in the long run. The bull gets cut out a little bit, there’s no cute chorus melodies or long, drawn out phrasing. This is just Sam playing the guitar and telling you a story. Spoiler alert, it’s a sad one.

Sam Baker - Pretty World