Aaron Shanley – Let The Sun In

If you’re a fan of Damien Rice and David Gray then singer/songwriter Aaron Shanley will be right up your street. His subtle tones of slow, meaningful lyrics, combined with thoughtful melodies and some seriously mellow backing music make for a great listen all round. Let The Sun In is a great mixture of slow, ballad type songs and typical indie/folk music, all of which is great to leave on in the background or an album that will provide the perfect drive time music.

The album opens with Coming Down, a song that has a very strong indie feel to it and reminded me of Jimmy Eats World’s Hear You Me. The same slow build up to the big break shone through in Aaron Shanley’s vocals just like it does in Hear You Me and is definitely one to look out for on the album. Other good ones to look out for are Go Easy; accompanied by female vocals the song has an almost eerie feel to it and once combined with heavy piano rifts you have the perfect ballad…not too obvious or screaming love or heartache, but a slow, gentle songs that gets the message across effortlessly. Also Let The Sun In is another one to listen out for and is the only other deep ballad type song on the album.

Picking up the pace are Ana Came Along, which sounds like an old country/folk song and makes for a pleasant change on the album along with Cotton Fields and Sarah Rose. All of these share some resemblances with each other but not enough to make a listener flick tracks as each has it’s own unique blend of something. There were a few tracks on the album which seemed irrelevant to the rest of the songs as they fell in the middle of a ballad and indie/folk song, and considering there are only eight songs on the album it seemed somewhat strange to fill up the rest of the album with these.  These were A little Rain, which is a lovely song but sounds like it would be better suited to a full folk/country album and Today I reminded me so much of a song I would find hidden away on a Norah Jones album. Again it is a lovely song, with great vocals and beautiful lyrics but to me seems out of place on the album.

The entire album is a really well put together and I’d definitely recommend giving it a listen. Having not heard anything from Aaron Shanley before I was pleasantly surprised at how much I did enjoy the album. It’s perfect for those easy, laid back days when music shouldn’t be an effort to find.

www.myspace.com/aaronshanley