Offensive in its pleasant inoffensiveness
Take It Slow is Michael Lane’s softest, most edgeless record to date, a truly remarkable accomplishment. This singer-songwriter has never had much in the way of grit, but he would throw in a more distorted guitar line or twang every once in a while to supplant his airy folk sound and break up the soothing monotony. It would be one thing if this textural sanding was matched by breakthroughs in performance or writing, but that does not happen either as the album does little to stand out in its incredibly overcrowded field.
Lane has a pretty vocal timbre and knows his way around a simple, sturdy melody. He doesn’t have the most distinct presence, but his cooing backing vocals are almost universally pleasant and pillowy. If each song on Take It Slow was a more intimate cut like “Ladybug,” then his delivery would work, but that’s not the kind of folk that makes up the majority of this album. Many of the compositions are going for a windswept, driving power, but Lane’s delivery is not synched with these compositions. One example of this is the track “Good Times,” where the initial driving percussion drops out, leaving sparser verses before coming back with a vengeance in the second hook. Even as the song picks up some momentum, Lane’s delivery still does not modulate across the song.
“Open Road” and “Moon and Sun” are the only songs where his delivery really picks up to match the rising tide of the instrumentation. Yet his voice on the former sounds clipped and tinny, like he’d somehow blown out a noise-gate with his delicate braying on the latter. The latter features his most impassioned singing, yet it would’ve been nice if the electric guitar—perhaps the most interesting texture on the record, was not muffled and buried in the mix.
There’s nothing wrong with doing the basics right, but Lane cannot reach that standard. The delicate cooing in “Coming Home” is decent, so it’s baffling that the second verse features a filtered vocal echo which adds nothing and is unlike anything else on the record. The entire run-time of “Moment” is backdropped by a single, endless key, like a producer accidentally turned on a switch and no one caught it before the final shipment.
The writing is sadly nothing to write home about either. Instead of taking one idea and running with it, it comes off as more of a light jog. There were no memorable details or detailed images to help define these songs. The only song that has any sort of personality is “Good Times,” and the bitter scorn radiating from the opening line “You like drama but you never did like the truth” did not gel with the overall relaxed mood.
Relaxation is the goal of Take It Slow, both the album and the title track. It exists to do nothing more than offer the musical equivalent of a long exhale. However, plenty of other albums exists to do the same while offering something else as well. The pleasant vibes are not enough to excuse nondescript mediocrity.
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