Artist: Michael Tolcher
Album:I Am
Label: Octone Records
Rating:
Reviewer: Leslie Flynn

Michael Tolcher’s I Am, yet another major label debut from an acoustic guitar playing singer-songwriter, sounds like just another generic John Mayer wannabe gone bad. As he attempts to ply together a hodgepodge of unrelated music genres, the disc bounces from one strange attempt at creativity to the next, going from lounge room jazz to sappy love ballads. The continuity of the album is nonexistent, causing the entire album to sound disjointed and badly put together.

The opening song, “Mission Responsible,” though somewhat confusing in context, is probably the most radio friendly of all 12 songs on the album. With a catchy guitar hook, the song is one that could easily get stuck in your head, but the lyrics seem almost contradictory. The title track also contains lyrics that might be hard to decipher as to what he’s actually talking about in the end; he never seems to complete an entire thought. Other songs like “Kiss and Tell” sound like their being sung by someone else completely different except for key moments when Tolcher uses his deep lower range, where his emotions came through more clearly.

The two songs that seem to come out of nowhere, “No One Above” and “Taxi Ride Kinda Night” both start sounding like genres of music that you’d never expect to find on a pop disc. “No One Above” begins with a hip hop beat that sounds like it’s been ripped from a track from the early 90s before turning into a slightly less irritating version of a Vegas-era Tom Jones song. “Taxi Ride Kinda Night” comes out sounding like something that would be coming out of the opened door of a hole in the wall jazz club in New York. The use of horns to add some class is worthy of praise, but the lyrics strike one as being thought up as he goes along. This impromptu feeling and the suddenly operatic-turn-drunken-buddy-sing-along ending creates one cheesy song.

A few redeeming moments come towards the end of the disc in the form of “Miracle,” “Kings in Castles,” and “Waiting.” All three songs show a different form of creativity than his previous experimentation with mixing musical genres. Taking chances with manipulating the rhythm of his words mid-song is typically hard to pull off, but Tolcher is able to make it work even when he suddenly throws in the line “Life is but a dream/So go merrily” to the tune of “Row, Row Your Boat.” Weird though it sounds, it actually seems to fit. In “Kings in Castles”, he pulls the same trick, singing “We’ll be the heroes/Oh say can you see/Those bright shinning stars” to the sudden melody of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Ending off with “Waiting”, probably the darkest song instrumentally, you’ll be surprised at how easily you’ll get the lines “They’re waiting for something to change into/Something worth waiting for” - probably the most catchy line on the entire album.

Tolcher seems to try to hard to be creative and attempt to differentiate himself from the many other singer-songwriters out today, which, despite being an admirable quality, is difficult to pull off without seeming too pretentious. Overall, the majority of his songs are catchy, though the album isn’t fluid nor does it manage to separate him from the crowd. He’s a smart lyricist at times, almost too smart for such generic pop rock, but given the potential shown towards the end of I Am, there’s a strong possibility that he can tighten up his act and produce must more promising work in the future.