Darren Jessee may have gotten his start as the drummer for Ben Folds Five and eventually for others like Hiss Golden Messenger and Sharon Von Etten, but it’s been years since he left the kit and walked to center stage to take his place behind the mic first with the band Hotel Lights and eventually as a solo artist. Central Bridge, his third solo outing, is a moody, but often subtly beautiful exercise in earnestness.
While Hotel Lights wasn’t exactly a raucous bar band, his solo efforts have found him leaning even more into delicate folk music. Along with Jessee on vocals, guitar, piano and drums, he’s joined by bassist Jay Brown and longtime collaborator Alan Weatherhead on keyboards and guitar. The rest of the album is filled out by strings (put to great use on “Wild Ascending Blue”).
“Central Bridge is looking for life after the pandemic, looking for connections and to be connected through the heart and not just through the mind,” Jessee says. “To really feel your connection with everything, whether it’s nature or other people.” And those connections can be heard throughout the record on songs like the solid album opener “Love And Thanks” and “Getting Close.”
The album picks up where 2018’s The Jane Room 217, left off continuing down the route of sparce, intimate character studies. “Riding The Horses,” lyrically and musically is one of the strongest songs here, boasting one his with his most appealing melodies to date.
But while there is an obvious beauty to the music here and a keen eye towards landing on the perfect lyrics that manage to be both personal and universal, after nine tracks of the same soft, almost whispered vocal delivery, lush instrumentation and slow tempos, many of the songs start to bleed into each other with very little distinction from one to the next. There are some solid songs on Central Bridge, but sometimes less really is more.
