On Hope, Bangor-born musician Foy Vance’s debut album, various instruments sparkle as if privileged to have been accepted onto a wonderful record. Over the course of his debut’s 72 minutes Vance’s astounding vocals, lingering somewhere between Van Morrison’s husky tongue and Ray LaMontagne’s fearsome pitch, never cease to amaze. He cocoons himself and indeed the listener inside a vacuum, where we become engrossed in every word, pluck and bounce, as if it’s all been specially arranged for our ears only.
Soulful and stirring, ‘Be With Me’ is the perfect opener. Loose snare skins rattle behind an edgy guitar riff, diminishing any fears that what we may have on our hands here is another average singer-songwriter. “She said you can only love what you’d die for baby” sings Vance on ‘Shed A Little Light,’ a delightful jazzy affair with beguiling poetry at the fore.
Sometimes one can detect the Northern twang in Foy’s vocals, similar to Duke Special. But Vance can also melt his surroundings with moments of smoothness and delicacy. ‘First Of July’ and ‘Indiscriminate Act Of Kindness’, the latter exploring a quirky little tale about one man’s baffling kindness towards a stranger, are simply magical, threatening at one point to rip the linings of the speakers with their undeniable power. Elsewhere, ‘Hope, Peace And Love’ tosses about a healthy marriage of infectious beats and funky melodies. Folks, a new contender has just entered the ring.