Kevin Morby

Singing Saw

For all the tragedy that’s to be found within Singing Saw, it is a warm, welcoming album, every second of it informed by a knowledge of the transience of all things.

Singing Saw is his strongest album because it shows a process of refinement, and because Morby’s songwriting has become less referential and more grounded. The basic ingredients haven’t changed, but Morby is figuring out how to retain and amplify his strongest points—his weary and wise voice, his understanding of how the musical pieces fit together—and leave everything else behind.

Morby’s third album Singing Saw is a collection of polished songs — even if much of its latter half blurs together.

As a whole, Singing Saw is Morby’s best work. He’s becoming one of the most memorable singer songwriters to emerge from the States in years.

The match of songs and sounds on Singing Saw delivers on all the promise of his earlier records, while firmly establishing Morby as one of the best singer/songwriters going.

Using twilight walks into the mountains as inspiration and the shabby house he shares with his girlfriend, his guitars and an old piano as his base, Morby cooked up a glorious third album.

Singing Saw is the sound of affirmation, of both hard-earned talent and childlike imagination. As a result, Morby has discovered a sound which is organic without ever quoting, rocking without ever rolling at the same time, transcending while barely leaving the ground.

Morby has crafted a more diverse and atmospheric set of contexts, environments that mostly offer that voice the space to be centre stage, but which offer musical contributions that compensate for its emphasis on clarity and phrasing over melody.

An album that finds him light-years beyond his previous release, revealing him to be one of today's most promising singer-songwriters.

Singing Saw will be remembered as a breakthrough moment from an artist who’s now more comfortable articulating his own visual language.