(2021) Trevor Sensor - On Account of Exile, Vol. 1


Review:
An organ chord, a drumroll and an almost Procul Harum-ish intro leads into On Account of Exile, Vol. 1 as the voice of Trevor Sensor, sounding like a man who has smoked too many cigarettes and is feeling the effects of it, begins to sing. Yet the music, filled with sounds of brass, grasps your shirt while Sensor begins to work his magic, sounding like Roger Chapman’s of Family decades ago. Yet the voice is angrier, as Sensor looks at a world that no longer makes sense and seems to be verging on the brink of extinction. Still, Sensor isn’t going to go quietly, he’s determined to have his say. He admits that he lives in the present moment, “I believe in just doing things – in action – and doing things well. Anything outside of that is just speculation or dreaming. We’re only living as well as we’re able to remain in the present moment…and that’s what I’m trying to get at each day.” Which is probably the only way to look at things as the world teeters on the edge of destruction, a point made abundantly clear on “Twilight of Idols” as he hammers the piano while singing, “Then I call my friends/ I say this is the end/ It made me question who I am.” Yet there is still a bit of the imp left in him as he segues from majestic swells to a gut crushing scream entering “Madison Square Garden” where he envisions, “a manic pontification on how we lose ourselves in the delirious night while death hovers over our heads—the whole show waiting to end on a single push of a button.” Recounting the malaise that crept over him, “Days Drag On” illustrates the pain he lived in for five years. The music fills a void, creating something almost jaunty as the piano and drums fight the lyrical doom of not knowing who you are. Yet the song ends down in the dumps, leading into the soft focus of “Sawdust Chokes the Wind,” a sombre recounting of a mill town that lived and died along with its citizenry while the politicians prevailed despite the hard times. Dominated by organ and piano, “I’s Hads Me Revelations” is a Dylanish blast getting to the heart of who we are and how we survive. “On a stump of gold I’ve wept my tears/ cause nothing’s worked after all these years.” Yet Sensor has survived, mostly by understanding that we must find our own sense of motivation to live despite a world that seems to often leave us with a sense of desperation. We have our own answers. Trevor Sensor has been to the edge, he’s peered over and decided that despite all the evidence to the contrary there are still reasons to live. On Account of Exile, Vol. 1 doesn’t offer us a lot of answers because that’s not Sensor’s job. He can’t find reasons for anyone else to live, it’s enough that he finds them for himself.





Track Listing:
01 - Twilight of Idols
02 - Madison Square Garden
03 - Chiron, Galactus
04 - Days Drag On
05 - Sawdust Chokes the Wind
06 - These Dark Days
07 - Another Zodiac Killin'
08 - Somewhere Like Vietnam
09 - I's Hads Me Revelations


Media Report:
Genre: folk-rock, indie-folk
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits