SHREDnews

By: Kristina Valentine

John Garrison first burst onto the music scene as the singer for the English pop-rock band Budapest.  After the band ended in 2006, Garrison moved across the Atlantic to New York City. His most recent album, Departures focuses on just that. It chronicles Garrison’s new fears, loves, and excitements that come with the huge life change.

The album starts out strong with Let’s Run. It’s appropriate that this would be the song that the album opens to.  The song starts to speed up when the fist chorus jumps in singing “Let’s tear down the walls of this old town and leave it all for the rest to run around,”. The lyrics seem to be fairly personal to Garrison and help to show how he felt when making the decision to flee to NYC.

Footprints is exactly the type of song the you would want to listen to if you were trying to get over a break-up. The powerful lyrics and calming instrumentals compliment each other perfectly. This song again fits in with the albums theme of change, saying it numerous times in the second verse.

Alexander & Annabel is the defining song of this album. It’s a powerful ballad tells the story of two lovers in New York City. The beginning of the song is very somber but as it progresses, the lyrics become much lighter.  The lyrics are strong enough where you can picture the story, but they’re also very personal and relatable.

Cold Coffee seems to be one of the weaker songs on the album. It’s the fourth to last track on the record, so by the time that you get to it you’re begging for something fresh. It’s an upset when the lyrics start to kick in and it sounds bitterly familiar. Everything from the lovesick lyrics to the piano-drum duo is sadly generic.

Go seems to be another love song at first listen, but if you read into the lyrics a little further, it’s anything but. The lyrics speak to the fears and insecurities that we all have about feeling good enough for somebody else. It’s the longest song on the album at 6:47 but it deserves every second of it.

2^nd For The 1^st Time is the perfect way to wrap the album.  At first the song almost sounds like a folk tune, but then the alternative kicks back in. The lyrics are reminiscing of life before Garrison moved and comparing it to how it is now.

Overall, the song is exactly what you want to hear when you pop in an album for the first time. You get heartfelt lyrics, good instrumentals, and you can tell that you’re listening to someone who makes music because he loves it.

For Fans of: James Blunt, Coldplay, Snow Patrol

Overall Rating Out Of 10: 7

Top Tracks To Listen To: Let’s Run, Alexander & Annabel, 2^nd For The 1^st Time