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Album Review :
 Luke Dowler - West

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Artist: Luke Dowler
Title: West
Label: None
Release Date: 11/26/13
Reviewer: Cimarron Hatch
Buy The Album: iTunes / AmazonMP3

Tracklisting:

  1. Firewater Revelation
  2. Good Enough
  3. College Towns
  4. Hold Up the Sky
  5. Halfway

Missoula, MT native Luke Dowler recently put together a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new EP. The goal was $5,000, and by the end of the project $6,237 had been raised. Now we have West, the product of this campaign, which was made without any help from a label.

The EP starts off with “Firewater Revelation,” a drum and acoustic guitar based song about temptation and redemption. The mix of this song sounds a little off, but it doesn’t detract too much from the song itself. Next comes a bluesy song called “Good Enough,” which is about trying to do anything for a person so you can be who they want you to be. A gospel organ creates a dramatic, yearning sound through the song.

Acoustic guitar introducing “College Town” is really pretty and captivating. But a lot of different clashing, odd rhythms going on during the song got somewhat confusing. And then an obviously computer-generated sounding trumpet did little to improve the sound. The basic idea of the lyrics—being able to interact with other people—is good, but the way the song was executed just doesn’t seem to work, unfortunately. “Hold Up the Sky” is a subdued song about wanting to have some new excitement in life. The piano throughout makes the song very nice. Finally, “Halfway” is an electronic song with a lot of beats and vocal effects. The lyrics are about people looking for God in worldly vices.

Overall: This EP showcases some new ideas from Luke Dowler, and it seems to be a progression of his style. Luke’s voice remains consistent in each song, and the songs are just right for his low and somewhat raspy vocals. It’s interesting that he seems to be branching into some electronic-type music. This makes me think of Alex Clare’s huge 2012 hit, “Too Close,” which combined an acoustic/folk song with dubstep, and something like that would be great by Dowler. This EP is a good look at what is to come from Luke Dowler in the future, and shows his talent very well.