Music Review // Thorin Loeks "In This Place"

https://thorinloeks.bandcamp.com/album/in-this-place

Through a short intro comes the titular track on "In This Place"  I've read a lot about how people say that you shouldn't use "singer/songwriter" as a genre for various reasons but whenever I hear what can be broken down as a voice + acoustic guitar that will always be how I think of it.  Maybe you could think of this album by Thorin Loeks as being like the early days of Dashboard Confessional (before the full band) but with a bit more bass in the vocals.  It's a little less emo than that too and I would say leans more towards folk if anything.

There are some beats in here, strings too, and on the song "Open Sky" it really kicks in.  I enjoy the power of lyrics such as: "I just made a plan / to love my life / I messed up again / but I'll still try"  Sometimes all we can do is try, so we must continue on.  "Ice Age" makes me think of if that particular film was made by Disney while there are backing vocals on "Tonight" and that song makes me think of Eagle-Eye Cherry for some reason.   The song has beats and it just drives, so even though you might think of this as being a certain way for being acoustic it does tend to move more than what you would think of in terms of folk.

While some of these songs can take a turn for the lighter in some ways ("Let It Rain" for example is a nice one to just put on and zone out during, perhaps while watching it rain) the last two seem to be the most deep of them.  "With You" is a love song about how regardless of what happens, "I'll be there with you".   It sounds like the type of song people would play over a montage of happy photos at their wedding.   It really is quite moving and though I've said this is more folk than emo it doesn't mean that these songs remain free from feelings.

"In This Place" does take a lot out of me when I listen to it.  It's light in the acoustics but it's heavy in the depth of songs.   When you reach that last song, "All That's Left", you hear that voice which has been hypnotizing you for the past thirty or forty minutes and it just feels so final- so much like you have listened through to the end and went on this journey with Thorin Loeks.  But, it was more like you were being told a story throughout these songs and so you're not as affected as a listener but by the end you notice that Thorin Loeks is different than when the album first started and "All That's Left" is the detailed note as to why.