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Artist: Lance Odegard
Label: Looking for Alma Music
Length: 12/54:36
Ah, Canada. We embrace you because of Neil Young and Barenaked Ladies, we curse you because of Celine Dion and Bryan Adams, and we can't figure out what to do with Alanis Morrissette. You have produced some of my favorite unknown songwriters in the last five years, people such as Miranda Stone and Michael Krahn, and it looks like we may have another.
Lance Odegard is the latest alt country/Americana singer-songwriter to come from our northern neighbors. He bills himself in the "vein of Jeff Tweedy, Ron Sexsmith, and Derek Webb," and he's not far off. Renovation is pretty close to all of those and more.
"Unravelling" and "Young" are Jakob Dylan (Wallflowers) meets Mitch McVicker type songs, both lyrically and musically. "Renovation" features Carolyn Arends on background vocals, and depicts a human soul as a house that needs some fixing up:
It's hard to give away what you've spent your life collecting"The Song," which is a Counting Crows/Vigilantes of Love meld, portrays the joy in creating and singing, and tips its hat to Paul and Silas. "Honestly" is a painful, Derek Webb-like confessional, about the struggle to be completely open:
You reveal my treasures as trinkets when compared to the pearl of great price
I am learning your way of appraisal
And how to house this eternal kind of life.
Listen to me, in you I will confideRenovation is a disc that works on two levels: you can listen and enjoy the music, or you can examine the lyrics and find yourself getting convicted. In that regard, comparisons to Derek Webb and Rich Mullins are definitely warranted.
For I fear that I've traded the big lies for ones I can hide
'Keeping it real' is just one more way to steal
When authenticity is the new disguise.
Brian A. Smith
31 May 2006
