Kris Ward Why Is Everybody, Anybody? Release Date : 2005. Label: Playing Canadiana Music. Rating: Andy doesn't dig rating stuff. Kris Ward, the Ottawa rocker showing us the world hasn't seen its last Tom Petty/Jakob Dylan/John Mellencamp. The type of songwriter with a voice that comes across with a chippy vibe and a really neat ability to snap over to a higher note before swinging back to his normal range. A voice that is not fluid so much as it means it, where it becomes more about the emotion of the song than the music-school perfection of it, where the key is realism , where the edges scrape you just barely so you can feel you're actually alive. The songs touch you in a way that you just get it. You know what Ward means. You've been there. He can strain, he can lilt and flow when it counts, and he can get breathy. This comes out on the slower, more acoustic tunes, which by the time I'm up to the fourth track, appear to be pretty evenly split with the rockers. Said track, "Break Me," is one that I want to feel punch out a bit more. It has that slightly reserved sound that could be swiftly rectified by a level or two being adjusted somewhere in the mix - I just want to hear the guitar in this one shred more, cut loose a bit. However - this is not a regular occurence in the full CD. Most of it gives exactly what it needs to. Oddly enough, when I first heard him live, I thought more Stereophonics-Britrock, but now I hear more of the Americana-style backroads rock. Only Canadian. Rusty songs. Moments later, we get "Sleepwalker" breaking the disc just over in half. It's like intermission. A really lovely intermission. It's a soft and sweet piano ballad. How old and Beatlesy... or not.. kinda jivey, but slow, echoey... nice tune. Beautiful. You can feel the strain in these vocals, so soft and touching. Well this is the sort of album that makes you want to sit on a dock at night and think about everything you've ever fucked up. Thanks a lot, Kris Ward, you just made me the most depressed human being in creation. The melodramatic/uppity switcharoo trend continues by the step up in tempo for "A Victory Song (For The Defeated)." ...see earlier note about depression. Ward definitely doesn't let you feel exactly the same way for more than 5 minutes. "Between Starlight & Sunlight" is pretty big and stadiumlike. And shortly, the album closer, "Silver Linings (This Is The End)" is sinking us back into the world of stormy, gutwrenching pianos. Misery is what I was given... This is like one of those songs where there would be slow-moton bouquets of dramatcially-coloured flowers being tossed and destroyed, and lots of inclement weather and moody lighting and scathing looks... and so it ends... Song of choice : "Sleepwalker," no question about it. It's so haunting and longing. Beach at twilight style. -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Kris Ward website Published : September, 2005.