Style: singer/songwriter, acoustic folk
Label: self-released
Home: New Jersey
Year: 2019
Member: Brad Kleiman ~ vocals/acoustic guitar
This is Brad with just his voice & acoustic guitar for some stripped down versions of his songs away from his bands Jackie Puppet & Jackie Town & his earlier electric guitar laced solo work. I've reviewed a few of his albums, & Jackie Puppet, as I found them enjoyable due to Brad's witty lyrics. I also really like the weaving nature of the electric guitars on his songs, which I've compared to fave musicians Lou Reed & Ace Frehley, thus I came at this acoustic album with unsure footing of if I would enjoy it as much. A common problem facing all bands is how much the music can take away from the lyrics. In this format there is no distractions. The raw foundations of the songs are held out naked to sink or swim with little help. After repeated listens over a couple weeks, my fear with this album is misplaced. Its a different beast than his primarily electric albums. Brad writes little witty songs. Not that the electric songs are distracting one's ears from the lyrics, but I did mention in my reviews of Melodies & Words & E.P. that it is easy to not realize until after the fact what Brad has written. Only after the song, as you're lost in the weaving guitars, do you suddenly think to yourself 'Did he just say what I think he said? Wait a minute...' His songs are a tapestry with little things coming at you. Here the tapestry is now barren of colors, as Shoeprints puts the focus where it should be. Or, at least, he re-adjusts the focus if you missed his wit the first time around. His guitar playing is simply played chords, while his voice is given some echo & sometimes some backing vocals, but not enough to distract. Laying naked & unadorned, the result is an album that seems to come out of the clouds. Quite literally it feels hypnotic, light & relaxed, or if angels with their harps made an album it might have this feeling. Unelectrified harps of course. If you like your music less Ace Frehley & more mellow, than come to this album by Brad before the others I've mentioned above. Shoeprints was produced, engineered & mixed by long time collaborator Dennis Young of Liquid Liquid. I give Dennis the credit for the little out of the cloud touches, as they sound like a producer's vision given how they haven't appeared on the other albums by Brad, while Liquid Liquid is known for his musical explorations. Its an interesting approach to making this album sound different than your normal acoustic singer/songwriter album. Yet, it has the side effect of giving most of the songs the same mood. By making the album have an overall sound I feel that the individual personalities of the songs have been subdued. Given that the songs themselves tend to fall within a similar musical style naturally, here they end up unintentionally blending together even more than they might otherwise. For those that like easy listening or meditative music, Shoeprints will do it for you. I'll give points for the unique approach to re-interpreting the singer/songwriter template, though its not to my personal tastes. While the other side effect is when a song is done differently, it really stands out breaking through the clouds like a sudden thunder storm. "Crashpad" is one of those songs. With the backing vocals & some light lead guitar lines it reminded me of Jim & Ingrid Croce, which is not the mood of the album. Its a highlight of the album for me, but its a highlight by breaking out of the clouds. "Litter" also stands out, as the vocals sound like some simple Jerry Garcia Band songs. It has that laid back lazy feeling that Jerry made into an art form. "Configuration" has some soft lead guitar lines that I wish had been used more throughout the album. I almost hate to point out what is a very worthwhile attempt to make this album stand-out, but its such a prominent technique that didn't work for me that I would be amiss to pretend it doesn't exist. Yet, as I said, if you like meditative this is certainly that, but its not my thing. All that being said, I want to spend the rest of the review on the lyrics, as that's really the important thing with this album & the reason I'm reviewing it. Shoeprints revolves around love & passion with a woman. As is sung in "Configuration": "Painted darkly / decorated sparsely / Just the walls to hold us up ... You're no idiot / You know I built it / as a way to share space with you." Yet, the relationship isn't as good as one might hope, or it took a turn for the worse. As the song confesses: "This configuration / is just communication / My sorry way of getting through ... When we convene / to fire up our schemes / I'm disastrously alarmed ... By the sounds of delusion / with no nearby solution." The relationship comes to a heart wrenching end. As "Truce" says: "First you were a landmine / Now you’re worse than last time ... Let’s declare a truce / I’m not really used / to being on your bad side." "Litter" outlines the immediate heartbreak. "I chased after airplanes ... I fell down the runway / with scrapes upon my thighs ... Took to writing letters / You, know, the litter on your floor / Didn't feel much better / so I wrote some more." From here we move to one of the prominent themes found on Brad's albums: looking through the lens of a forlorn seeker of a past romance. As he sings in "Time Is Cruel": "Think I aged overnight / Time is cruel, is it not? ... I'm fading again." Time seems to slow down as the memories continuously weigh down the present. "Fated to fading / Don't know just when / Now there's only waiting." Life becomes a waiting game for the past to return. As he sings in the title track: "She leaves shoeprint reminders / so that I may find her ... When she wears a dark face / I leave open a space / a place to thaw out her ghosts." As a side note, this song opens with the most sexy description of a woman I've ever seen in song. The relationship was amazing & naturally ended, or was a troubled relationship from the start but the memory wants to paint otherwise, but whatever the situation having it back is the utmost goal. This theme continues in "Always" with: "I’m always looking through the doorway / like you’ll be the next to walk through." Life is not complete without this relationship, though it all might be a delusion as the song goes on to say: "Tomorrow could be a trainwreck." The emotional mind is full of powerful desires & longings, & they completely overrule the rational mind that says things might not go as planned nor might not be as perfect in the past as remembered. The emotional mind ignores the cracks in the wall & tries to find solutions, even if they are hopeless. One obvious solution is making a change that would draw back the lost lover. As is sung in "If Love May Be True": "Oh the vices I may give up / Oh the ways I may change for you / Oh the things I may do for love." Change often does have the result we want, no matter how much we change. Listening to the rational mind might have told us that, but we don't follow out that line of thinking as the heart hurts too much to think rationally. Eventually, with nothing changing to the situation, life falls into a daydream of hopeless longing, as expressed in "Daydream Song". "I can't put my arms around you / but in daydreams I can ... So if next time / that you see me / I am staring silently / know I'm thinking about you / & what could someday be / for you & me." Its really a tragic dead end street emotionally. There's nothing but memories, as "Crashpad" relays while looking over a picture from a past Xmas. "Miss you badly / pictures make me teary / can't find you in clear skies." We really can't mold the future around memories of the past. Time has moved on, like it or not. Even if we could bring back the past it likely won't be the same. Not to mention, relationships often end for a reason & might be best left as memories. Let her go. As "Crashpad" honestly recommends: "Don't have no crash-pad for you." That is the only resolution in this heartbreaking tale of loss many of us, or most of us, should be able to understand from our own experiences. In the end, rationality wins out. Obviously, Shoeprints forms a story, but I must confess it really doesn't. The way I've talked about these songs forms a story, but I moved them around to make that story. As I looked over Brad's lyrics the story just seemed to reveal itself, but just needing a little help to be perceived by others. Thus, is this a concept album? Maybe unintentionally. I have a feeling Brad may have just collected songs together that he liked & wanted to perform again, or were fan favorites, & may not have connected them into a story as I have. Maybe they're not even about the same woman, so he wouldn't have seen them as a story. This is the where the creator & listener go divergent paths. For me, all that's missing is a fitting concluding song, yet Brad might be shocked there's a concept album here. I will confess I had a great time going through the lyrics & putting the songs in order. It wasn't that hard. I didn't force anything in. Though, this album is so sad, as the guy never gets the girl, that if these songs are true I almost feel sorry for Brad. I'm not saying my love life has been any better, given I brought an ex to a suicide ward & another died at 33 from alcoholism ... I just don't put it into song. In those past moments I wish I had been a songwriter, or had someone like a Brad Kleiman on hand to put my words into song. Its the burden of a songwriter that they do turn to the page to put down their life. Its such a somber set of songs I almost want to end the review on a light-hearted joke, like I look forward to the follow-up "Shoeprints: As The Shoe Fits." To note, this album is also available as a live album recorded in a church in New Jersey, with long-time collaborator Ray Bally producing, with the same song order but no effects. Here you'll get Shoeprints naked & raw, where Brad's voice waivers, the guitar isn't always perfectly strum, the strings make extra noise, & you can feel the air vibrating. Its a fascinating contrast to the studio album.
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