Search - Casey Stratton :: Divide

Velvet Ice

Lee Armstrong | Winterville, NC United States | 03/15/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Casey Stratton has a beautiful voice with an extensive range that floats effortlessly into the upper registers. Reportedly, he left Sony and released independently on his Sleeping Pill Music label to gain control of his music. Stratton does everything here from vocals, piano, guitars, violin to drum programming. With a voice I describe as velvet ice, he's got two versions of "Divide." This is the one-disc version. Stratton writes all of the tracks. While I tend to gravitate to more uptempo tunes like "House of Jupiter" from his Sony release, many of the songs here are slower such as "Maybe for a Minute" & "Sorry I..." "In Silence" starts with some electric guitars, but then slows down. While slower, the music still works well such as the beautiful "Summer" that recalls more simple happier days, "We were two like the wind, always rolling, never really touching down." Stratton turns up the energy on "Opaline" with guitars like thunder & his voice hitting the high notes effortlessly and then diving down for the grunge in his emotionally complex lyric, "In the depths, a figure was hiding all dressed in black & deciding if she would come to devour our falsified life. You never wanted to be what you claimed to foresee for yourself; so I sat waiting." The CD concludes with Casey's 7-minute track "I Promise Love" that may be the best track on the set. It pumps with his voice urgent, "One world where we all fit together well; It could be, but we make it hard for us; A solace is coming on the summer wind." Stratton's one-man-band approach works fairly well; however, I kind of wish he'd hire a live drummer to spark the percussion. His voice is incredible and the music flows well. Casey Stratton is an artist whose far-reaching talent promises great things. Enjoy!"