CD: Jon Allen - Deep River

If you're not familiar with Jon Allen, here's a few facts: he possesses a fine gravelly voice, and nimble fingers. More than anything, though, Allen has an uncanny knack for penning a good tune. He learnt his craft while sequestered up in a woodland shack. Actually no, that’s Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. The truth is Allen’s back-story is a little prosaic by today’s standards – he studied song-writing at a performing arts college in Liverpool.

In keeping with its cover, Deep River, Allen's third LP, mainly flows at a pastoral yet stirring pace. If that first bit sounds a little off-putting, be aware too that Allen has, largely, avoided the kind of naval-gazing that mars so much modern guitar music. Things may start a little on the sentimental side but, after a slow beginning, the quality of the music keeps building.

Four songs in particular stand out: “Hummingbird Blues” is an open-tuned finger-plucker that sounds like it could have been lifted off Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left. Here both Allen’s guitar and vocals have a peaceful, early morning feel. Next up, “Fire in My Heart”, kicks in with a cascading piano riff reminiscent of the old standard, “Cocaine Blues”. A couple of tracks later the album reaches its peak with “Wait for Me” – a dreamy tune with a whiff of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” about it. And the final shift of mood is the penultimate track, “All the Money’s Gone”, which trucks along with the same off-hand sense of desolation as Dylan’s “Everything’s Broken”.

I’m not sure, in fact, that it doesn’t have the actual same chords as “Everything is Broken”. Still, if Allen doesn’t have a distinctively original style what of it? Deep River isn’t “retro” in some karaoke or X-Factor sense. Rather, it is evocative of some of the more interesting moments from the alternative modern songbook. Well worth checking out.

Overleaf: Watch Jon Allen performing "Night and Day":