Two Grains of Sand

Since Bob Dylan emerged in the early 1960s, people have been declaring subsequent singer/songwriters to be "the new Dylan." The first "new Dylan may have been Donovan, the Scottish folk-poet who came along shortly afterwards. No one ever seems to have been called a "new Donovan," but that wouldn't be a bad way to describe Piers Faccini on the basis of his third album, Two Grains of Sand. The British-born, French-raised Faccini has a similar calm, breathy tenor (he lacks Donovan's lower notes), and he sings over simple folk arrangements often consisting of a fingerpicked acoustic guitar line, plus a violin, say, or a harmonica, now and then with a harmony vocal or simple, restrained drum pattern. These polite folk-pop performances are in the service of Faccini's lyrics, which are heavily poetic, but not particularly original, laced with cliches and platitudes. Now and then he works up an emotional declaration, as on the anti-war "A Storm Is Going to Come," but most of the time he is reflecting on the vagaries of love by employing nature imagery. Actually, it's better to focus on the gentle grooves and contours of the music than on the words, anyway. Piers Faccini is the sort of performer who should assure that, no matter how old the members of Fairport Convention get, there will still be people to play their annual Cropredy Festival. ~ William Ruhlmann