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in winter..

.. it's like drinking black coffee trying to stay warm and keeping the cold out. the rain falls, the wind blows. some of you even get to see snow.

in autumn..

.. it's a backyard in the suburbs, and hundreds leaves covering the green grass.

in summer..

.. it's a night-time thing. out on the balcony (porch) with some beers and your friends.

in spring..

.. it's the hope for a brighter day.

Sam Shinazzi
Then I Held My Breath

http://www.netrhythms.co.uk/reviews.html#sam

There is an almost magnetic awkwardness about the songs on Sam Shinazzi’s third album Then I Held My Breath. Its as if Shinazzi is revealing a series of uncomfortable moments in his life. Instead of polishing and crafting the tracks, he has left them at their most natural best. There is a simple clarity and honesty about songs like Please Don’t Let Me Forget that makes them breathtakingly beautiful. Instead of searching for that elegant, well turned phrase Shinazzi tells it as he feels it and that only serves to strengthen the bond between artist and audience.

The simple but unshakable songwriting foundations on which Shinazzi has built Then I Held My Breath allow him to be touchingly frank, Girls, for one, only works because it is so open. Any hint of over production would make it self indulgent. And that’s the key to Then I Held My Breath, each song ‘works’ in its own unique way. The fact that Lil’ Wanderin’ Star is ‘painted’ on a rock canvass, doesn’t make it a rock song. It’s the story that Shinazzi is compelled to share that is at the heart of it all.

With Then I Held My Breath, Sam Shinazzi displays a born talent for creating a mood. Walking is sparse to the point of being bleak but it’s that quality that drives the song home. As it unfolds it’s as if Shinazzi is completing it along the way. To then follow it with the naive love song My Very Own Mary-Ellen gives a perfect example of the light and shade contained in the album.

You’d be hard pushed to find a convenient label for Then I Held My Breath, while it has threads of many genres, it belongs to none. In truth it’s a shining example of a songwriter at his best, the triumph of substance over style.