At first glance “Underground Demos” doesn’t seem like much. Wrapped in a paper CD sleeve, the artist’s name is hand written and the track listing is printed out on a computer label. Perhaps however, this is part of the album’s initial charm – the name aptly fits its packaging. The album is the creation of James Ethan Clark, a North Carolina native who keeps his melodies simple and his lyrics heartfelt.
Heavily laden with breezy guitar harmonies, Clark sounds like many of the emotionally driven acoustic performers charging today’s music scene. His songs talk about love, dreams, loneliness, and broken hearts. He combines upbeat and melancholy melodies with lyrics that seem right at home in his mixture of folk inspired, pop rock. The album features a number of original works as well as a couple of cover songs, thrown in for good measure.
Perhaps the best track on the album is the folk inspired, “Coalmine”. Driven by beautiful harmonica notes, it could fit perfectly into the small, nearly forgotten mining towns sprawled throughout Appalachia. A song about lost love and unrealized dreams, Clark passionately sings, “I’m sure she thinks that he can save her soul / but she needs to know that he won’t leave her whole”.
Clark’s, “Underground Demos”, is a bare bones production. With only his soft voice and gently strummed guitar chords, there is almost no additional instrumentation. It is a humbly released eight track album fighting to secure its place in the acoustic pop rock genre. He stands a good chance of accomplishing this; now, if he can just remember to properly cite music...(“Wonderwall”, the huge 90’s hit, was originally by Oasis, not Ryan Adams…).