Evan Bliss – ShhhPOW!

Just like the onomatopoeia implied by the title of his solo debut, Evan Bliss is likely to catch you off guard. You’d rightly expect that anyone who has ever fallen victim to even one Adam Levine comparison would not be likely to make jaws drop with awe. Consider Maroon 5’s biggest hit of the past decade: “This Love” may be incessantly catchy and instantly daneceable, but it’s not as if – nearly eight years after its initial release – people are still yammering on about how their minds were blown by the band’s uncompromising vision and challenging R&B grooves. On the contrary, everyone remembers that music video. Thankfully, the slick and stylish underpinnings of neo-soul music are just one of the many things at which Evan Bliss excels. Early press suggests that the Maryland native’s style is akin to an “international rock buffet.” Bliss doesn’t exactly channel Peter Gabriel or Paul Simon on this disc, but his comfort zone certainly covers a great expanse than you’d be led to believe.

The album’s sequencing will make all the difference in terms of whether you choose to ride out the nearly hour-long set or call it quits after track two. Opener “Love is a Dancefloor” seems like it’s bent on Top 40 rotation placement, blending strummy funk guitars and free flow lyrics that are occasional sung in a celebratory falsetto. The sophistication may seem contrived, but even on this early cut it’s hard to resist the sweet vocal harmonies between Bliss and guitarist Josh Grove. Follow-up tune “Fleiss” is content to follow a similar path, eschewing any curve balls or left turns for predictable midtempo balladry that examines destructive relationships. Sung with throaty conviction and backed by melancholy piano and strings, it’s easy to relate to risky admissions like, “So I dig down and hold on tight / but it slips through my fingers / didn’t get it quite right.”

Though instantly absorbing, it’s a welcome change to hear Bliss getting a little more adventurous with his ideas after the album’s introduction. The urgency of “The Last Ride” is made even more immediate by drummer Shareef Taher’s furious pounding and Bliss’s own caterwauling screams. With its astral imagery and delay-enhanced guitar lines, “Captain Collins Navigates from Star to Star” pays homage to both Bowie and U2. Propelled by an aggressive four to the floor thump and chiming piano tones, the song meets somewhere in that sweet spot between arena rock pomposity and sweaty club electronica. “Passerby” may ride the same drumbeat as Green Day’s “Holiday,” but it’s great to hear Bliss and his band reveling in some gritty blues guitar licks.

From here, Bliss expands his palette even further, taking on spaghetti western vibes (“Come Shine”), 90’s alt-rock (“Parachutes And Ladders”), and chamber pop a la Sigur Rós (“The Crazy Lady With Ten Cats”). It may be difficult to conceive of an album that bounces between so many disparaging subgenres, but Bliss and his backing band pull off the feat by steering clear of any pretension.

At the album’s core is “Awake,” a dark and ambient slowburner that really shows just how elastic this guy’s strengths are. Devoid of the early tracks’ wry and brash tone, the song is densely layered with melismatic vocals and echoing piano chords. The whole thing was apparently inspired by Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life, a setting of four paintings that use allegory to depict a man’s coming of age in the American wilderness of the 1840’s. The tune goes down surprisingly easy, despite its heady backstory.

Therein we find Bliss’s greatest asset: the uncanny knack for making sweeping gestures that can be absorbed with the ease of pop music. It’s the stuff that eventually lands indie bands that rare spot in the mainstream spotlight, and if Bliss can hold out a little longer – as the wisdom of “Big Decisions, Little Things” suggests (“Big decisions / brighter days / they won’t happen right away”) – the long wait should be well worth his trouble.