Not quite piquant but sporting a little more edge and charisma than the status quo calls for, Eddie Berman’s lead vocal in the new single “Rolling Over Me” is reason enough to give this juggernaut of a singer/songwriter a shot this September. Berman’s previous work captured the attention of a lot of the folk music faithful earlier this year, and in some ways, this latest release isn’t much different from the standard we know him to uphold. It’s filler-free and supported by a man who knows how to sing, which is a combination that I’ve noticed becoming harder to find every day in this genre.
The rhythm unfurls the melody in this track ever so slowly, and there are a couple of moments in which it feels like Berman wants to go a little faster than his band, his band, but I think the contrast in their tempos is entirely intentional. The vibe is meant to be a little skewed in this performance, to show us what this player can do when he’s being tested a bit more than he needs to be. There aren’t enough folk musicians willing to go that extra mile to establish who they are to an audience, and this fact will only aid this artist’s ascent towards stardom. This song is the first single from Eddie’s upcoming album ‘Signal Fire,” release date 1/19 by Nettwerk.
While I don’t normally go for a tranquil mix like this one, I think it’s working for what Eddie Berman is trying to lay out in this release. If there was more of a chokehold over the percussion, we might not have been able to appreciate the lush color of the strings, both acoustic and electric the same. The vocal at the center of the track is always lighting up the groove like a lantern in the middle of the darkness, and with a constrictive mix, we wouldn’t be hearing all of the decadence in the details here.
Over-stylization has been running rampant across the underground and the mainstream in folk music the same over the past few years, but that isn’t something that ever becomes a concern in “Rolling Over Me.” Eddie Berman, as young and early in his career as he is right now, has more swagger beneath the limelight in his performances than a lot of his elder competition does nowadays, and it’s influencing everything from the way we interpret the story being told in this single to how we perceive his skillset as a complete package.
Eddie Berman is focused on making a classic style of folk-rock in his work, but he isn’t letting throwback aesthetics restrict his creative whims for anything. “Rolling Over Me” extends what I first learned about his identity in “Mine All Mine,” and to some extent, it highlights the route he has to take beside his skillset in this crusade from the underground to the primetime. His voice is a winning ticket, and as he continues to make amazing music like “Rolling Over Me,” he’s going to gain a greater following through the proper cultivation of his vocals and the harmonies they can construct.
Garth Thomas