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Curtis Heckwolf : Voices Inside (2001)**°°
I personally liked Curtis voice, and the overall poetic mood in the songs. "I am the One" I particularly liked. In the early days of my webpages I was always with my full attention so much into the mood of the music I could hardly listen carefully enough to the texts. That's why I asked the singer-songwriting program producer L.W. to write the review of the CD.
L.Woolfe, considered as our specialist in Singer-Songwriters described "I am the one", as "picked acoustic guitar very quickly augmented by a cello sound from a keyboard and musically meanders quite innocuously and pleasantly along."
About the album he said "The vocals are a little dramatic and over-earnest. Whilst the mood is conveyed melodically and musically, the lyrics are somewhat vague and woolly, not really articulately very much. And that for me is a problem for singer-songwriters." If you cannot articulate thought and feelings in lyrics, then what's the point ?"
I personally would prefer to leave out his more detailed remarks on the lyrics, because for me it is not so important that any singer-songwriter who sings from the heart must be a gifted writer. Sometimes some earnest simple ideas can articulate enough expressions to me. But he continued :
"The guitar playing is uninspiring (out of tune 12string on "I think about") when playing rhythm, busker-like, much better when picking. The keyboard sounds are either irritating or atmospheric, depending on how one feels about synthetic generated sounds. The best songs for me are "I am the one", "What are you after" and "To the Shadows". Overall though this will appeal to those who like singer-songwriter light. Not for me."
I argued at lot with the Woolfeman about this review. He agreed that he took it from a straight literature singer-songwriting point of view, being frustrated that good writers don't get easily their full apreciation and that people often don't care about this kind of depth. He still agreed with me that Heckwolf musically has a very nice approach, and that he "writes" completely as a "musician", so not as a literature-writer, and that he succeeds to create a beautiful mood with that. In that aspect especialIy think he really is worth investigating. Curtis uses words that are expressed and can be understand easily by the heart. It has for me enough sensibility to convince me this way.
Another friend of mine came into my house while I was playing Heckwolf and he said immediatly :
"hey wow ! what is this ?" At least he experienced Heckwolf as a musical mood expression from a poet of the heart. What else could have expressed this better than with his music and voice ?
Myself, I do appreciate his 'dreamy romantic approach' very much. In compairing with so many singer-songwriters I have heard before, since a long time I was able to finally listen to a recently published singer-songwriter release with no difficulties at all. Even the use of keyboards instead of accoustic instruments is so sparse that in my opinion these have more or less the same effect as when there were accoustic instruments instead.
