I first heard the soothing indie-folk stylings of Jamie Barnes several months earlier on a date when he was opening for Over the Rhine. The song "Conflict Diamond" in particular left the kind of lasting impression rarely achievable by an unknown guy or gal with a guitar (see Barnes' opening act in October and Over the Rhine's Christmas show opener for opposite examples).

Vocally, lyrically and musically engaging, Barnes has quickly come to represent for me the kind of friendly hometown hero of Louisville that Denison Witmer is for me back home in Philadelphia. Unlike Witmer, who he can certainly be compared to stylistically, Barnes' words more often evoke deeper imagery and literary substance. That's not a knock on Witmer, who explores love, loss and friendship with the best of them, so much as it is a tip of the hat to the way Barnes avoids the cliché singer-songwriter traps of so many of his peers.

Take the album's opener, "Vampire Movie," for example. The song takes you from George Washington crossing the Delaware to a movie production company with its fake teeth and fake blood being run out of town as an internal conflict – "is it wrong or right to go along?" – is wrestled.

Much of the album follows that pattern with Barnes weaving tender acoustic instrumentation with soothing vocals and complex lyrics that leave the listener to interpret a range of feelings and emotions.

Hardly a new record – the first pressing released even a year before my engagement – "The Recalibrated Heart" is a fine introduction to an artist who, three albums in, has the songwriting prowess to be more than just an artist folks in Louisville go to see at a coffee shop.

posted [02.06.08]