{"id":9214,"date":"2014-07-08T15:56:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T15:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9214"},"modified":"2014-07-08T15:56:55","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T15:56:55","slug":"bry-webb-free-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/07\/08\/bry-webb-free-will\/","title":{"rendered":"Bry Webb \u2013 Free Will"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/2014\/07\/08\/bry-webb-free-will\/if008_12jacket_v2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9215\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9215\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/IF008_1400x1400_300dpi_RGB-600x600-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"IF008_12Jacket_v2\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bry Webb\u2019s sophomore solo effort, <i>Free Will<\/i>, is all quiet muscle and calm power.<!--more--> He\u2019s still drawing inspiration from his experiences as a father and husband, but those emotions and attitudes have become more complex in the years since <i>Provider<\/i>. Those circumstances have come together to form a focused, thoughtful, and nuanced collection of songs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFletcher\u201d does an excellent job of setting the tone for the album, sounding reserved but defiant as Webb repeats the phrase, \u201cno higher power could hold me to the ground,\u201d over lilting pedal steel and finger-picked guitar. The hurdy gurdy on \u201cLet\u2019s Get Through Today\u201d makes for a cinematic nostalgia, like sun filtering through trees on Super 8 film, making the impact of its coda \u2013 \u201cthe more fucked up things get, the more I love you\u201d \u2013 that much deeper. \u201cWhat Part of You\u201d is a simple acoustic strummer, backed by the wavery vibrato of lap steel, with Jennifer Castle helping Webb drive home the chorus: \u201cnow love, there there\/stay here with me, everywhere\/I\u2019ll stay, and always\/I\u2019m gonna love the part of you that can\u2019t be saved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second last song on the record proper, and the last you hear of Webb\u2019s voice, is \u201cBig Smoke,\u201d originally written for a movie titled, <i>This Beautiful City<\/i>. It\u2019s a gorgeous, affecting tune built on a melodic guitar riff that ducks in and out of following the ups and downs of Webb\u2019s own vocals. The last words on <i>Free Will<\/i> are, more or less, a call-to-arms: \u201cdeath to our misgivings.\u201d It\u2019s a triumphant and powerful way to end a record that spends so much time dealing with the sort of situations that easily evoke self-doubt and confusion. <i>Free Will<\/i> is the sound of a man who might not know exactly what he\u2019s doing all the time, but knows what he loves, what that love means, and why it\u2019s worth holding on to, no matter what. (Id\u00e9e Fixe, <a href=\"http:\/\/brywebb.com\" target=\"_blank\">brywebb.com<\/a>) <b>Matt Williams<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bry Webb\u2019s sophomore solo effort, Free Will, is all quiet muscle and calm power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}