Andre Chrys is a troubadour with bite. His brand of roots rock allows him to explore a wide array of characters and themes dark and light, his love for the classics informing a sound that is rooted in a kind of edgy timelessness. This is evident on his latest record ‘Window To Nowhere’, which is due for release on October 15. Here the Winnipeg native proves his mettle after years of playing dues around Canada, before settling in Vancouver and turning his vast experiences into music that sparkles with road-weary grit.
‘Window To Nowhere’ is a relatively short album, consisting of just eight tracks and thirty minutes in length, but nonetheless we are taken on a ride through love and life that feels very personal despite the sonic dressing up Andre gives the songs. Don’t expect to find sweet little acoustic/folk ballads on here, because you won’t find them. The closest we come is ‘The Benefit of The Doubt’, a rare gentler moment that describes the tension in a relationship when white lies are told “to cushion the blow”. Andre begs his lady to forgive him because he meant well, shaping a vignette that surprisingly is not often approached in this way. It’s a sweet little Americana offering that is all the more precious for its outlier status on ‘Window To Nowhere’, which for the most part is full of gritty guitar riffs, cabaret-esque rhythms and thick harmonies.
Opener ‘Get Away With It’ typifies this sound, the words of a hard-living rambler spilling out onto a blues-rock soundscape. ‘Love Don’t Understand’ is harsher in its overlaid guitar effects, indie rock providing the basis for earthy bass and piercing pitch, the melody weaving around anomalies as Andre iterates his life of heartbreak. ‘Don’t Disappear On Me’ is more stripped-back, meanwhile, but instead of providing respite it turns to a haunting folk-noir style full of loneliness and melancholy. This darkness is something he returns to often; it provides the basis for country-blues lament ‘Falling Apart’, which mourns a loved one who is emotionally broken, and the groundwork for the rocking groove of ‘Old Volvo’, which tells the true story of Andre miraculously surviving a crash that his Volvo did not.
It all comes to a head in ‘The Velvet Rut’, a swinging jazzy number that recalls the bars and clubs of 1920s New York City and Chicago, as it describes how inhabitants of smaller areas settle into their easy, unambitious lives before later realizing they could have seen and achieved more. There’s an uneasiness to this narrative that finds us looking at our own lives and wondering if we have unwittingly sunk into a lifestyle that does not challenge or excite us. The title track, too, holds a sense of emptiness that finds us longing to burst out of our cage just as the walls are beginning to close in. For Andre, this song has particular application, due to his tiny living quarters in Vancouver, and many will find literal and metaphorical meaning in this tale of entrapment and isolation.
With a varied musical palette to draw from and an updating of classic, retro styles with intriguing narratives, Andre Chrys has created his own unique sound on ‘Window To Nowhere’. While often very much the rock side of Americana, there are still plenty of nods to country and roots here as he examines the world around him through a sympathetic pane. I wouldn’t be surprised if soon he grew out of Canada and was back to being the road-weary soul that he is.
Originally posted here.
