Aaron Lee Tasjan Hates Technological Alienation, Loves Versatile Pop-Rock Songcraft on 'Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!'
The East Nashville singer-songwriter delivers a tour-de-force
Jonathan Bernstein, provided by
FacebookTwitterEmail
In the Blazes and 2016’s
Silver Tears (see that LP’s “12 Bar Blues”), Aaron Lee Tasjan, like many of his East Nashville contemporaries, has in recent years moved away from country-roots music and toward a more expansive pop-rock. 2018’s
Karma For Cheap was a transitional record, swapping in electric guitars for acoustic, and folkie stoner wisdom for a more open-hearted curiosity.
Enter
Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, the singer-songwriter’s latest album, and his most compelling to date. His sonic reinvention here — marked by stammering synths and swirling glam-rock — feels both effortless and inevitable. Tasjan delivers songs like “Sunday Women,” with its chorus storming the song in its opening seconds, and “Don’t Overthink It,” with its psych-rock outro, with a thrilling, fresh urgency that makes it feel like he’s the first singer-songwriter to discover (or, in his case, rediscover) synths and pop choruses.