ALBUM REVIEW: Garrett Owen’s ‘Memoriam’ Embraces Chaos

Garrett Owen’s guiding force on Memoriam seems to be: expect the unexpected. Owen spent five painstaking years writing this album – the majority of which were devoted to end-of-life care for his grandmother, who lived her last few years with dementia. Owen funnels these experiences to interrogate how they impacted his friendships, mental health, and romance – the thrill of new relationships and the fear of loss (founded or not) that always seems to be an undercurrent.

Each song is carefully wrought, a tiny galaxy of emotions and striking imagery. The memory of a former lover becomes a “beautiful stain;” a misunderstood intention likened to the vagaries of the “pony express;” and the sunset – God laying His blanket down. Owen is the son of two missionaries who have traveled the world, and these dense lyrics show that he is quite comfortable with his own company – even if that doesn’t dissipate the loneliness.

The hypnotic rhythm of  “Pony Express” in particular calls to mind vintage of Neil Young with a modern twist. Owen’s voice is as smooth as it is rich – his lyrics create enough tension. Instead, Owen appears as a narrator trapped by circumstance – sound and lyrics – hoping against hope that his words come through as intended. If Freddie Mercury was a singer-songwriter rather than an arena rocker, this might be what his work would have sounded like.

For an album that is about embracing chaos, the music and lyrics on Memoriam are tightly controlled. Much like Juni Ata’s Saudade or Fancy Hagood’s recent album American Spirit, Owen joins a renewed movement of marrying folk sounds with pop. Americana tends to be gritty, buying into a fiction of authenticity, as if songs fall off the cuff and onto guitar strings. Rather, Memoriam is a finely-tuned machine that asks us to take time to understand each other and delve into the mysteries of our relationships.

Garrett Owen’s self-released Memoriam will be out on Nov. 1.