Music Review // James Keith "Cruel Game"

 

With dark and winding guitars, James Keith takes us into a song which sounds modern but also has this feeling that I haven't felt in a while about music.   I'm not saying that this sounds exactly the same, but I just remember the time when artists were on the radio like Bon Jovi, Richard Marx and Bryan Adams.   It seems like that genre that is somewhere between rock and pop, but closer to the rock, just isn't there any more, and James Keith could be bringing it back around with a modern touch.

The energy builds as the song kicks in and the lyrics start.   "Cruel Game" is about love, but it is about how love isn't always easy.   There is definitely something which needs to be said for this in a general sense because as the lyrics say, this is: "A love so rare, like a movie".   When you have that love that is so special it can feel cruel to some extent because you have to work at it.  If your love was just easy and never faced any challenges, then it might be more of a surface level type of feeling and just overall not feel so strong.

James Keith continues his commitment as the chorus has the lines: "Cause I'm everything, girl, but I'm nothing without you".   A guitar solo comes out and then the bridge is repeated with starts and stops in the music.   This is just an example of how the music doesn't feel like anything else on the radio right now, but maybe something which was on the radio predating the year 2000.  It just feels like we're rediscovering a lost form of art with this song as it can make me feel nostalgic and hopeful for the future at the same time.

As this song comes to an end it says: "It's not a cruel game / It's love / And I've got you".  That's one of the biggest points which the song needed to make and to close with it just seems to really drive the point home.   You cannot think of this as being a cruel game or a struggle or anything of that nature.  It is love, and that includes the ups and downs, the good and bad and everything in between.   This song is reminding us, James Keith is reminding us, and he is doing so in style.