Luke Jon Shearer “Close Your Eyes, Open Your Mind”
Rating 4/5
Luke Jon Shearer is a unique project based out of Australia currently gearing up for a 2014 Tour. The Luke Shearer moniker he’s created a primarily Electronica Pop based musical forum to spew from. This 10 song CD entitled “Close Your Eyes, Open Your Mind” covers a wide variety of genres in the process. Whoever he is LJS handle all creative duties and programming, guitar and vocals. I can also hear things as vocals, bass, guitar, piano, synth, keyboards and MIDI programming. With a sound ranging from Modern Rock, Indie-Electronica to Dub. Shearer has a uniquely forged a sound that translates through every song and beat.
These songs are passionate, real, interesting, alluring, and consistently well delivered. For those who like bands like LFO, Meat Beat Manifesto, Radiohead and Snow Patrol you will also be highly entertained. Mostly he sounds like: M83, The Cure, The Album Leaf, Bon Iver and Beach House. Shearer offers a distinct family synchronicity and musicality that can be found with no other band of this day and age – they are mostly fading. This CD includes 10 “richly theatrical” tracks that will not leave you high and dry, but in the process make you want to dance, think, rebel or even inspire against someone or some event that may have wronged you. No matter the occasion this album offers the perfect background music for those moments. While every track had an incredibly memorable quality worthy of many listens only a few songs could be classified as Radio-worthy.
Focusing now on Track 2 “Black Rain”; it has great lyrics and is the pinnacle the Shearer sound combining all of the above musical elements into one grandiose piece. The high and low beats intertwined with his voice makes it so easy to groove to. Track 3 “Peace on Earth” is another marquee track that easily leaves a lasting impression. Its melodic sultry sound with apocalyptic undertones makes for a great track that will cause you to look inward and outward. The lyrics are sound imagery is brilliantly executed. All 10 tracks portray true emotion and evoke you to feel the same. The lyrics, as with all his songs, paint a dark but honest picture. The keys and notes fall smoothly with every second that pass by and it is as if these notes and words were meant for each other. The rhythmic pace of all tracks hit home. Before you know it you will be pressing repeat and begging for it not to be the 10th tracks on the album.
I probably listened to this album 4 times and I’d say 30% of it is filler music not really worthy of your time. The rest of the album is above the bar. I would also recommend Shearer put a few more vocal tracks on his next effort away from the synth auto-tune posturing. Unfortunately this vocal approach is a wear on the ears over time and he should mix it up more. I would advise Shearer listen to Porcelain by Moby to see how it’s done. Vocally it’s fair to say Shearer doesn’t possess a voice that will stop your tracks so to speak however it is adequate and somewhat marketable for Ambient-Pop.
by Phillip Nelson