Grant Duncan - EP Review: Journey To The High Road
Grant Duncan’s Journey To The High Road EP follows an album he released a while back. It’s a great follow up, sticking with his style of writing in a country tinged way, while hinting at broadening the styles of music he’s been listening to. Grant has now also dabbled in production.
The opening track on this brilliant 5-song EP All The Tools You Need begins with a melodic piano line before the rhythm kicks in. It has a great almost reggae feel, yet it’s still very country. All The Tools You Need also features some great interlocking rhythms..
The second tune It Won’t Mean Much Until It’s Gone paints a picture of a New Zealand landscape being ruined, while some people ignore the problem. The lyrics “It all seems so easy, when you’re facing the other way” is a reasonably direct wake up call. The piano intro on this tune is wonderful.
This Was Our Way brings the tempo down a bit with its acoustic guitar opening. This is the EP's ballad, and while all four songs are catchy and likeable, this song is the one which stayed in my head for ages afterwards.
The fourth track Hotel With The Red Brick Walls plays on an up-tempo high note. It’s your classic county two-step, is lead and centered around a wonderfully played rhythm guitar and a wonderful track on such a great release.
The EP closes on an up-tempo high note with Sometime Real Soon, it has a wonderful hook into the chorus, and at just 2.18 long, it is really a bit short. I could have heard the chorus repeated a few more times than it was.
This EP has only one fault: it’s too short.
About Grant Duncan
Grant is also the frontman for Tokyo-based indie pop combo Pavement Candy which perform regularly around the Tokyo live arena and he was also previously the songwriter/bassist and vocalist for NZ rock band The Audio Justice who were finalists in the NZ 2013 Battle of the Bands competition.
Grant wrote and produced a full length album Alliance which was released on Spotify and Amazon on March 25 2018. His follow-up Early Morning Rise will be released on November 1 2018.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Grant Duncan
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