The Wake

Wake by singer/songwriter Foy Vance marks the end of a 26-year, seven-album project that began with the death of his father. In 1999, while playing a gig in Spain, the Belfast-born artist experienced a transcendent moment on-stage. The next morning he was informed of his fathers death from a massive coronary on that very night. Overcome by grief, he experienced a galvanizing clarity that gave him the resolve to create seven albums informed by his fathers example, each to signify his growth as an artist. Vances dad was a traveling preacher who moved the family from Ireland to the American South and pointed to his sons vocation by teaching him to play guitar in early childhood. Vances first outing since 2021 marks the occasion of Vance bringing in Ethan Johns as a producer and hiring a band that included him on guitars and other instruments, jazz pianist Neil Cowley, drummer Jeremy Stacey (Neil Gallaghers High Flying Birds), and Australian bassist Rex Horan. The set was completed 26 years to the day of the elder mans passing. The music here is signature Vance: He crosses folk, Southern blues, Americana, and more in his signature style with dynamic, raw, and ultimately life-affirming determination. The nine-minute opener "A.I.," with distorted guitars, a deep blue upright bass, the sparse drum kit, and Vances gospel-blues delivery, cautions that the full ascent of A.I. is imminent. "Hi, Im the Preachers Son" was co-written with frequent collaborator Bonnie Bishop, who also appears on the cut, which sounds like a swampy folk song with rolling snares and strummed acoustic guitars. When I was a child my father said/Never run before you crawl/And you must never forget/To listen for a call ... Since then I have fallen down so many times/That I no longer feel the pain/I am no fortunate son/I am no favoured one/I am but a loaded gun/Fired into a world gone wrong… hi, Im the preachers son, with an altar call organ carrying the tune home. "We Almost Made It" is another highlight. Hushed and deliberate, the weave of guitar and mandolin frames the lyrics yearning, regret, and resolve, offering bittersweet heartache teeming with Irish yearning. "Call Me Anytime" is the sets tenderest track. From a father, its sweet lyric and wrenching vocal contrast familial memories with a daughter and a young son to adult failures, repentance, and the acceptance of change. Closer "Bathed in Light" sounds like a Celtic pub song crossed with rootsy mountain music. Johns plays organ and harmonium, and Bishop sings harmony. Their duet refrain offers a joyous truth:You don’t know that your lifes begun/Til you know how it feels for you to kiss someone/Like you just found religion/Good glory got bathed in light…. At turns heartbreaking, ecstatic, and illuminating," Wake concludes Vances seven-album project with maturity and clear artistic vision; it reveals an artist emotionally, philosophically, and spiritually attuned to celebrating and preserving the human spirit inside a dark, often tragic world. ~ Thom Jurek