Ray LaMontagne’s Long Way Home feels simultaneously fresh and nostalgic. The first track and single, “Step Into Your Power” is hopeful and bright - like it’s summoning the sun to rise and our emotions to remember the good times, for they are what keep us going during the tough ones. It’s as if he wanted to start the record on a note that rings to remind us that “everything will be okay.” In the first track, tonally, struggle feels far, but also, never too far - “it’s the getting back up that makes you stronger.” And with this, we step into the rest of the album.
There are songs like “I Wouldn’t Change a Thing,” “Yearning,” and “My Lady Fair,” which feel classic to his catalog. As a longtime fan, I welcome this. “And They Called Her California” feels reminiscent of Crosby, Stills, & Nash - filled with blooming harmonies as the song takes its sweet time to the finish. As Ray tends to do, the record is full of lush and robust acoustic guitar tones, as well as subtle and nuanced harmonies and melodies that haunt you long after. Much of the album feels so pure that it could have been written to simply exist within nature. “La De Da, La De Dum” exists in deep, distant tones; a chorus of voices feels like a song fit for the forest - it feels one with the natural harmonics of the trees in a forest. In “The Way Things Are”
Ray uses weaving guitar and vocal melodies in a way that he does so naturally and so specifically - it is mellow and dreamy - immediately calling hazy warm tones that transport you back to a beautiful moment of your own. “Long Way Home," the title track and the last track of the album, is my personal favorite of the whole album. The track and the record both feel like a reflection of a journey traveled. It feels like an expression of gratitude for the experience - a beautiful reflection of ups and downs.
Rating - 5/5
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