evan charles - Between Two Worlds (2023)

Evan Charles is the singer, guitarist, and songwriter Altamesa bandleader searches inward on sharply written solo debut . Evan Charles works in grand archetypes and dichotomies, even as his songwriting grounds in a visceral restlessness and vivid imagery. With his band Altamesa, Charles painted a hallucinogenic existentialism of the Southwest on 2019’s sophomore LP Idol Frontier, cinematic in its desert ghost town mirages. His solo debut turns that searching inward. The balance between two brief spoken interludes, sampled from Westworld and a Carl Jung interview, sets the tension for the album’s big, unanswerable question: “What’s out that way?” Yet Charles’ philosophical underpinnings don’t deflect from the sharpness of his songwriting, from the opening Jayhawks jangle of “Remember When” to Dylanesque “Time To Move On,” an uplifting anthem from the bottom. Easy highway rhythms like “Heavy Rains Back Home” and lingering steel of “Shattered Love and Last Goodbyes” pace the setlist, while “Another Heartbreak Slipped Away” surprises almost soulfully – all as Charles croons between Tom Petty’s laid-back rock and Jay Farrar’s drawn-out loneliness. Touches of Altamesa’s sunburnt visions emerge in “The Return,” but the closing contemplation of “Horizon Line” best captures Charles’ current ethos, caught in the constant pull between the city and country, the road and home, love and loss.