Full Review: Chase Pagan – Bells & Whistles

Chase Pagan has always meant obscure and just slightly out of reach folk based mellow rock for myself, until now that is. In a world where accessible music isn’t always, and shouldn’t mean, good music Chase Pagan has managed to offer up ‘Bells & Whistles’ which merges “good” & “accessible” into one simple-to-grasp thing.

I never really thought I would describe Pagan as overly lavish and bouncy but there are moments which dance on the edge of that description. “Warriors”, despite a chorus that makes you reach for non-lyrical notes has some of those lavish moments during the verses. “Summer Comes” is probably my favorite song as it seems to combine the best parts on this album and joins them into a breezy, laid back song which incorporates the both, clever and corny, lyric “Summer leaves me nowhere but in the cold”. The pop artist, Mika, who came out of nowhere a bit ago oddly draws a lot of similarities to this newer and more accessible side of Pagan. That being said, there’s no reason why these songs couldn’t flood the radio with high pitch vocals and delicately chosen lyrics.

Chase Pagan is no stranger to controversy, or rather he has no beef with ruffling a few feathers, often using sarcasm [or irony] in his songs as the instrument to get his point across. “Don’t Be Gay” (working title at time of review) will probably stick in your mind long after it’s ended for that very reason. The song is about a father trying to talk his son out of being gay, asking over again different questions as to suggest the son didn’t realize the choices he was making. The line that sticks out amidst the bunch is the opening one that also makes an appearance at the end as well, “Daring, can’t you see you’re a boy…”.

Pagan mashes together country/folk, pop, and rock in such a way that it sounds pretty original and unique, yet he does it in such as way that sounds like he’s not even breaking a sweat doing so. I would recommend still taking a look at this record even if you haven’t been a fan in the past. You may still not be a fan but there’s a good chance he can convert you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at 3:44 am and is filed under Full Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.