Rank: 3/5
Shreveport-native singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc’s third album, “Cautionary Tale,” offers its fair share of pleasant melodies and thought-provoking lyrics but ultimately loses steam by the end of the tracklist.
LeBlanc, only 25 years old, wrote much of the material for this album after moving back to Muscle Shoals, Alabama. This is where he grew up with his father, singer-songwriter James LeBlanc, who was instrumental in his development as a musician.
The southern flair that is evident in most of LeBlanc’s vocals comes as a result of the time he spent in Shreveport and Muscle Shoals. “Cautionary Tale” came together after LeBlanc overcame a particularly exhausting period of his life in which he dealt with alcoholism. Fittingly, most of LeBlanc’s subject matter on this project deals with the struggles of measuring up to the standards that society sets for us.
The soulful opening title track comes off as an uneasy reminder of the values that our society wants us to think are important. LeBlanc asks, “We make another dime just to lose it in time, what’s the meaning?”
This first track sets the tone well for the album with slow-building melodies and an underlying sense of melancholy in LeBlanc’s lyricism.
There are a handful of standout tracks in the first half of this project, such as the heartfelt and beautifully arranged ballad “Roll the Dice” and the bleak, soulful “Easy Way Out.” However, most of the songs toward the latter half of the album fall short of the high bar set by previous tracks.
At a certain point in its tracklist, this album seems to run out of new tricks. This results in some of LeBlanc’s most forgettable and stale performances, like on the tracks “Lightning and Thunder” or “Balance or Fall.”
In this second half of the album, listeners might begin to feel lost in all of LeBlanc’s drowsy melodies and soft vocal delivery.
In the end, “Cautionary Tale” comes off as a very genuine, heartfelt project, but it lacks the innovation that might have been able to set LeBlanc apart from countless other singer-songwriters that draw from his same well of inspiration.
REVIEW: ‘Cautionary Tale’ is heartfelt but lacks innovation
January 18, 2016
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