Marshall Potts is a singer-songwriter based in Kamloops BC, a small Canadian town close to the US border, and he has released a new album, The Storm. This is his second studio effort since 2015’s Long Goodbyes. Potts found initial success in music fronting a band in the ‘90s called The Cause, later relabeled Saints and Poets. The band landed a couple of Potts’ songs on the soundtrack for the Molly Ringwald movie, Malicious, but Potts eventually withdrew from the scene to raise his kids.
Over the last decade, Potts has emerged as a solo artist, and The Storm is full of arena-ready country-rock songs that are focused on the positive side of life. The focus is as deliberate as it is infectious, but it is not born out of a pie-in-the-sky mentality. Potts traveled a long road between releases that included health issues, lockdowns related to COVID-19, and wildfires that threatened his home. So, The Storm has traveled through more than a few storms of life, making the album’s dogged positivity less of a “statement” from Potts and more of a personal stake in his own spiritual survival.
Produced by Tom Webster, The Storm has a vocal forward mix that is fitting for Potts’ voice and his aesthetic. His vocal approach varies in that he doesn’t latch onto one tonal quality but can sound gruff and surly or tender and vulnerable. He uses this to his advantage coloring different moments in the lyrics to describe their meaning. As such he builds a whole aesthetic out of his voice. Melodies are not just sung here, but heavily emoted. Even his imperative whispers on the title track are emotionally charged. “Wake up! Just get up! Let’s go!” Simple and deliberate, but they speak to Potts’ philosophy of positive change.
In the opening anthem, “Free and Easy,” he sings, “I’m gonna wait until tomorrow/ ‘cause maybe tomorrow is gonna be alright.” But the album reveals that waiting for Potts isn’t only a glass-half-full attitude, but a resilience based on a philosophy of internal change. All throughout the album, Potts sings of changes in himself as he advocates for changes in others. The title track is emblematic of this as he sings over the banjo-driven groove, “And in my broken heart I see/ What the storm revealed in me/ Now we reflect the love we see (We have to change our ways).” Trials for Potts seem to be the mechanisms that reveal what he needs to change, and the album doesn’t let up on this idea, either in the pacing of the music or in his cheerful goading.
The near-perfect pop-country number, “Let It All Go,” balances another list of imperative (“Climb aboard my heart/ Come away with me”) with this advice: “And if what will be doesn’t marry with what you see/ Then you haven’t learned to let it all go.” In “I Like the Fall,” Potts belts out on the chorus, “I’ve forgotten what we’re fighting for/ All I know is that we’re so much more/ We can be stronger.” Even the tune “Rope” with its aggressive banjo riff and synth horns sounds relentlessly optimistic that the person he’s asking to come help him with the rope around his neck will indeed show up in time.
If there’s a musical guidepost to these songs it’s country, and Potts and company ably fill in their duties to the genre while avoiding its tropes. The violinist on “Let It All Go” is conspicuously not a fiddle player, while Kirby Kaye on pedal steel and lead guitar stays well away from the twangy pitfalls of the genre and claims territory of his own, especially on the opening and closing tracks. Adam Eason on drums and Stephen G. Franz hold down the rhythm section duties while the MVP of the band has to be Mitchell Potts on keyboards, blending piano and organ like a boss and bringing in synth backdrops when needed to color the tone of the songs.
At forty minutes, The Storm is a balanced batch of songs that are pristinely produced. These are feel-good songs in the kindest sense of the phrase. They carry a drama and sense of rapture the likes of which can only be found in Contemporary Christian Music. But the unlike CCM songs, the emotional tone doesn’t let the listener get bogged down in spiritual details, and Potts doesn’t hint at any religious affiliations. The Storm is a shot in the arm, not a treatment plan, and it does its job well.
Christopher Raley
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