Jerry Leger - Waves Of Desire (2025)

Canada’s finest exports, singer-songwriter Jerry Leger. Born and raised in Toronto’s East End, Leger has built up a remarkable body of work over the last two decades, culminating in fourteen studio albums that have seen collaborations with americana icons such as Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins and Grammy winner Mark Howard. His regular visits to tour the UK and Europe have made him a firm favourite on the live circuit, whether solo or with his band, The Situation, where his shows are electric, as anyone fortunate enough to have caught him live would attest.

Earlier this year, Leger released a solo album entitled “Lucky Streak – Latent Lounge, Live From The Hanger”, produced by Timmins at his studio, ‘The Hanger’ in Toronto, where he revisited a selection of his back catalogue and gave them a more modern feel. This time around, he is reunited with his band and, taking advantage of a short break whilst touring Europe, stopped off at Cologne’s historic Maarweg Studio to record his latest offering “Waves Of Desire”.

Co-produced by Leger himself, along with guitarist Julian Műller, with contributions from harmony vocalist Suzan Köcher, the album finds our songwriter connecting with his heroes from his childhood, with the timeless spirit of The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison and The Zombies, emanating through a constant stream of sweet harmonies and infectious melodies. The pop overtures are perfectly balanced by a mix of grit and vulnerability running through each line of the narratives that Leger’s vocals deliver with all the emotive intensity that one has become accustomed to, and sets him apart from most of his peers.

From the opening bars of the first track, ‘Alcatraz’, where a 12-string guitar and Hammond organ create a soft, sweet ambience for the melancholic poetry, one gets a sense of the purpose and intended direction of the album, which is immediately confirmed by the following number ‘It’s So Strange’, with its combination of pedal steel, doubled acoustic guitars, mellotron and exquisite harmonies all helping to conjure up memories of the fragility and feerlessness of those early Everly Brothers recordings. This desire to evoke the lush sound of the early sixties is also evident on the nostalgic ‘Willow Ave’, where Leger’s narrative recalls walks with his father through Toronto’s East End, against a melody that builds in intensity, drawing comparison to a young Roy Orbison.

The album does manage to offer a contrast in pace, with ‘Calling A Bluff’, where more excellent use of the Hammond organ offers a Stones-flavoured strut. At the same time, the soaring infectiousness of the title track delivers a punkish swagger that finds one recalling the classic debut album from Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul. The intensity is maintained, though at a much reduced pace, on the atmospheric ‘Let Me See How It Ends’ which feels like it would have been a perfect fit for Emmylou Harris’ Grammy-winning album “Wrecking Ball”, while the album closes with the achingly beautiful ‘Back In Love With Me Again’, where the melancholly of the narrative perfectly supported by the lonesome cry from the harmonica help to create a modern country classic.

With “Waves Of Desire”, Leger has turned to the music that first inspired him as a child for inspiration, creating a soundscape that leans far closer to “pure pop” than most, if not all, of his previous work, inhabiting a musical landscape more familiar with artists such as Nick Lowe. That said, the album is still packed to the gunwale with Leger’s trademark narrative genius; it’s just that the arrangements are sweeter, more accessible, and one might conclude, more commercial. However, the latter should not be seen as a negative, as “Waves Of Desire” is another excellent album that will comfortably sit alongside the best of Leger’s burgeoning collection.