Label: The Players Club/Mascot Label Group
Release date: 2/26/2021
Production: Joseph Williams
Album length: 50.23 min
Genre: Art Rock / Art Pop
Rating: 8.5/10
Joseph Williams hardly needs an in-depth introduction. The son of famed film composer John Williams, he etched his name into the roll call of unforgettable rock vocalists in the second half of the eighties, above all as a member of American art rock masters Toto. He came back to them in 2010 and is still on board after the band’s reactivation in 2020. While the whole Toto situation was getting messy, to say the least, the guy was busy working closely with Steve Lukather. Instead of material for a new Toto album, the two of them ended up writing so much new music at the same time that they decided to each put out their own solo studio album simultaneously.
The review of Lukather’s new solo album “I Found A Sun Again” is still to come, so let’s first put the under the microscope the one that’s more clearly cozied up to pop. Joseph Williams has a powerful, polished voice with a strong soul spring in its step. It’s tailor-made for life in the thick of pop, (cabaret) chanson, and even the more ear-friendly kind of jazz variation. Anyone who knows Toto knows this is a band that could always play every genre going, fuse them with incredible finesse, and serve them up in a self-grown musical culture all its own. “Denizen Tenant” is, first and foremost, a Joseph Williams album through and through. Still, he’s got a string of top-class musicians keeping him company, the vast majority of them good old musical buddies who’ve been with him throughout his career. First of all, the architects of the Toto story: Steve Lukather, David Paich, Simon Phillips, Leland Sklar, Nathan East. Among the rest, it’s worth singling out keyboardist Jeff Babko, percussionist Lenny Castro, and above all the superb Michael Landau, who, much like Steve Lukather or guitarists such as Jeff Kollman and Carl Verheyen, counts as a real guitar oddball and “fusion” guru. With the best of the best in the room, it’s hard to go wrong. Williams’ deeply felt, lived-in vocal soul delivery gets brilliant layering on the album, with a wide dynamic range of expression. It’s an album where pop, rock, jazz, and even touches of world music, blues, and a Celtic epic surge (Mistress Winter’s Jump) shake hands in a vivid, contemplative dialogue.
There are quite a few moments here that could easily live on a Toto album. Remember Her and Liberty Man especially, plus parts of the opener Never Saw You Coming, while the mystical closer World Broken , which turns especially dramatic in its melancholy, could just as well have landed on Toto’s “Falling in Between”.
One of the most interesting spots is the title track, with its jumpy rhythmic switches, intriguing shifts in chord structure, and cheekily slipped-in tricks of jazz finesse that even add a bit of Steely Dan sentiment. With Black Dahlia, which features a David Paich contribution, the album edges toward a kind of pop that Michael Jackson would have had no trouble embracing. And speaking of pop, it comes through strongest in the ballad Wilma Fingadoux, both in production and in arrangement. This track really spotlights Williams’ vocal magnetism, with all the lived-in emotions and passions that he handles so realistically in his delivery.
The album is colorful and wonderfully varied in ideas. Every track has a clearly honed character, with detailed polish in sound and arrangement, and a filigree “gluing together” of tiny pieces into a mighty, structured whole that comes across as fresh, inspired, relaxed, and easygoing the whole way through. Done with feather-light ease. What we’re talking about here is a steady stream of small masterpieces by great musical masters, paving a wide runway for Williams’ full-blooded vocal expression. Another especially distinctive track is The Dream, which delivers one of the album’s more playful, bouncy, and lighter moments, while showing off a remarkable harmony between the vocals and the instrumental contributions of the guest musicians. The extra coloring with additional vocal harmonies also sparks in contrast and, all the way through (naturally), evokes the Toto vibe. Williams gives himself plenty of room to actually change every vocal line of the verses with his soul maneuvers, dressing them up with melodic variations.
There are two covers on the album. If I Fell, originally by The Beatles, is a vocal duet with Lukather. It’s a strictly acoustic number, wittily planted on the kinetics of a Latin rhythm, which gives it a fascinating twist. The other is Gabriel’s Don’t Give Up, which takes on a pronounced soul and even gospel flavor. The demanding lines that belonged to Kate Bush in the original are handled fascinatingly and convincingly by Williams’ daughter Hannah Ruick. That said, “Denizen Tenant” is loaded with so much art rock value in itself that any cover, however interesting, could always be missed. Anyone who knows Williams’ album “Two of Us” (2006) knows the man has always been fond of reworking other artists’ originals. So covers on this solo record don’t come as a surprise.
Joseph Williams remains a great, charismatic vocal grandmaster. The album is wildly likable, constantly alluring, with a strong art character and a wonderful blurring of boundaries as musical genres hang out together. Williams’ vocal charm keeps on maturing nicely, and “Denizen Tenant” confirms it in full. This is an album that doesn’t tolerate “half-measures”, one that “grabs you whole” and wins you over with every spin. It’s a superb end result of serious perfectionism and finely measured steps in sound and songwriting, born of the wisdom of seasoned, mature masters of the musical craft.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Never Saw You Coming 5:19
2. Liberty Man (4:29)
3. Denizen Tenant (3:26)
4. Wilma Fingadoux (3:43)
5. Black Dahlia (4:34)
6. Don’t Give Up (5:52)
7. The Dream (3:42)
8. Remember Her (4:44)
9. No Lessons (3:48)
10. Mistress Winter’s Jump (3:32)
11. If I Fell (2:33)
12. World Broken (4:41)
Line-up:
Joseph Williams – vocals
Guest musicians:
Jeff Babko, Oscar Bugarin, Lenny Castro, Nathan East, Jay Gruska, Barbara Gruska, Michael Landau, Steve Lukather, Steve Overton, David Paich, Simon Phillips, Dylan Ronan, Hannah Ruick, Leland Sklar, Steve Tavaglione, Weston Wilson, Ray Williams, Mark T. Williams
