Mark Rose – “The Sound of a Turnaround”
Mark Rose came to Ferris last week to perform his songs acoustically; in this EP we can hear his songs with all the bells and whistles an acoustic performance just can’t showcase.
“The Sound of a Turnaround” is the four-song follow up to full-length “Wonderful Trouble,” an album that showed off a nice creative variety from a singer-songwriter.
The EP’s title functions as the release’s overriding theme, though “Soft, Yearning Love Songs” would have worked quite well. Perhaps that was a bit too on the nose, though.
The four songs here function as a small, cohesive machine of piano-laden, singer-songwriter acoustic-pop goodness. Where the album had more time and space for playing around with rhythm, structure and genre, the EP serves as a romantic bonus disc and a quick, powerful shot of tugging on the heartstrings.
Whether it be the thankful “Decade of a Girl” or the “baby please come back” message of the title track, love and romance are the name of the game.
Fortunately, Rose is good enough with the acoustic guitar for the emotion to be believable in most of his songs. While there aren’t really any homeruns here, the first three songs are solid romantic singles with the title track getting pretty darn close to the fences.
“The Sound of a Turnaround” doesn’t quite shine like Rose’s full-length, but it’s a fine group of love songs. A little more jazzy or bluesy genre playfulness would’ve been nice, but like many EPs, it had its niche. This one slides into its corner quite nicely.