Patrick Sharrow - 'The Heartland'

Patrick’s own website uses words like americana, roots rock, blues and alt-country to describe his music. That’s quite a broad palate but all of those elements are indeed present. The single ‘Lightning in the Jetstream’ is the opening number. It follows a timeless tradition of ‘high school sweetheart in the back of a car’ songs in the style of ‘Jack and Diane’ or ‘Summer of 69’ although Patrick is more Ryan Adams than Bryan Adams generally. A lonesome keyboard introduces the ‘road’ song ‘Highway Home’ before Patrick adds a warm vocal and tasteful guitar. He’s been down a few roads for sure and even sailed most of the seven seas in pursuit of his dreams so it’s an authentic-sounding take from someone who is clearly comfortable with the life of a rolling stone.

In the title track, Patrick tackles another staple of the americana play-book in documenting the struggle and strife of small-town Middle-America. It’s like a more subtle and finely-tuned ‘Born in the USA’ and bears comparison to the best of Mellencamp’s work in this area. Besides a great riff and memorable chorus, I particularly liked the verse about “the bar just up the street; where the congregation meets” among several beautifully written life observations.

Many of the other songs on the album are thoughtful, predominantly acoustic numbers sharing an introspective, reflective and slightly melancholic mood covering regrets, mistakes, first loves won and lost and childhood homes. Amongst those, ‘Here to Stay’ is a heart-felt and delicate declaration of love whilst ‘The Long Goodbye’ tells of a girl who “shared a single bed but she couldn’t come”. The swinging rockabilly blues of ‘Turncoat Blues’ provides some light to balance that shade and the striking ‘If I Needed You’ covers all the bases; starting with a stark piano intro and talk of “Sunday sins”, demons and “coffee in your morning gin” before swelling elegiac orchestration builds into a brief but righteous electric guitar solo. Having seen Patrick play live and really let loose on the fretboard, I would have loved to have heard more of that on the record but this is just the start and there’s plenty more of everything to come from this young man.

After a Summer run of shows in the North-East, Patrick has a Wednesday residency at the Moxy Hotel in Downtown Nashville during September but there should surely be some bigger stages in his near future on the strength of this fine debut.