Tomorrow's Taken

Album Review

Ian McGlynn debuted on record in December 2002 with Lemon, an hourlong live set played in a club with his breathy tenor and piano accompanied only by bass and drums, singing 15 introspective, moody songs to a small audience. It was a sensitive and somewhat precious sendoff, but the keyboard technique of this Berklee graduate suggested he had places to go as a musician. Less than a year and a half later, Tomorrow's Taken, his studio debut, demonstrates far more musical ambition and variety, and it also makes some of his influences clearer. McGlynn and his producer, Shane Tutmarc, handle most of the instruments, including plenty of programming, in constructing some complex soundscapes that use various keyboard textures and mix in synthesized sounds to ape strings and horns, for an effect that often harks back to the 1960s, specifically to the 1966-1967 era of the Beatles (closing track "Turn Away" is something of an homage to "Strawberry Fields Forever") and to the early work of Chicago (particularly on "No Time") when that band was extrapolating ideas introduced by Paul McCartney on Revolver. McGlynn and Tutmarc's musical concepts tend to overwhelm McGlynn's mere melodies and lyrics, but he remains a moody, introspective songwriter beneath the glitz, which suggests another familiar influence, Brian Wilson. Tomorrow's Taken is both a highly inventive work and one steeped in the traditions of progressive pop/rock.