Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Johnny Reynolds, Independent 2018.
Johnny Reynolds is a professional musician and expatriate Dubliner who has been a resident of Canberra for some time now and his presence has greatly enhanced the strong live music scene in the national capital.
During his time in the capital he has developed a well-deserved reputation for outstanding guitar playing both through his Irish folk/rock band Night Potion and also The Johnny Reynolds Blues Band.
He also plays a lot of solo acoustic gigs and on this album we have Johnny in his most stripped back form accompanied only by his acoustic guitar.
I’ve known Johnny for many years and I’ve always been captivated by his skills on the guitar but until this album I hadn’t really payed much attention to his songwriting.
With Distant Voices Calling he has deliberately chosen to put the songs front and centre, consigning his virtuoso guitar work to the supporting role and consequently it’s given me the opportunity to appreciate just how good these songs are.
All the songs are presented in a gentle relaxed way and fall easily into the acoustic folk/rock/blues genres.
The lyric content ranges from romance, both current and passed, (Love Comes Calling, Between The Lines) through nostalgia for home (Distant Voices Calling) to a call for us all to unite to confront the extremes of the right (Let Dictatorship Fall) and to save our planet (Fragile Earth).
All the songs are excellent but there are a couple of standouts.
Dedicated Watchman opens with the sounds of seabirds and tells an allegorical story of a coast watchman who is ever vigilant saving souls who have gone adrift and Time explores the journey back in time through our memories. “I’ll go back in time just to see what I will find.”
The opening track, Between The Lines, is a thoughtful song that explores the ups and downs and cyclical nature of love affairs. It contains a lyric link “Love comes calling” which is the title of the wonderful second last track on the disc.
The entire album has this sense of unity about it which is enhanced by the simplicity of recording, the stripping back to bare essentials, but also the recurring themes that are sprinkled throughout the songs.
The album is available for download through Amazon and iTunes. There are samples on amazon and YouTube.
