Album Review: Peter More Shows Love Is A “Beautiful Disaster”
Sometimes, I struggle to accept that life is a series of fated encounters. It makes me wonder how many heartbreaks and breakthroughs I am meant to undergo. Yet, when you hear how Peter More’s debut, Beautiful Disaster, was made, my hope is renewed that chance encounters can bring a destined joy.
The album’s origins lie with More’s happenchance encounter with Donald Fagen and his musician-wife Libby Titus in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It’s a second home to More, a Fort Worth native, who had visited the lush city since childhood! Little did he know that his childhood attraction to this gorgeous, colonial town was fate pushing him towards an intrigued Fagen, whom after a few jam sessions, offered to produce More’s debut solo LP, and recorded it in bursts over the next two years.
Listening to Beautiful Disaster, you, definitely, get a Damien Rice/ Elliot Smith vibe from Peter More. His voice scrapes and smooths notes like a plow rummaging through sand to give you a grained look on love, depression, and sheer humanity. It is for this reason you hear the Rice-Smith comparisons because, like these guitar-led artists, More sings to misery of company when you are miserable.
“Cuando,” “Beautiful Disrepair,” and “Not In The Cards” have More raking through his vocality to suffer through his vulnerability. It is not easy to feel open and in love with a partner when you feel unhappy with yourself. Yet, for More, whether love from another or love from yourself sparks you to heal is up for grabs. Maybe, it is situational as songs such as “Fireflies,” “In The Basement,” and “Country Love Song” have More seesawing through the highs and lows of love/self-love. In perspective, the ways he pivots his melodies and lyrics on love make sense because this emotion is never steady….. but it can be constant. If anything, Peter More’s Beautiful Disaster is a lesson on how love rocks us, from time to time, but, at least, it tries to give us as much company as misery. For More Information On Peter More An To Buy Beautiful Disaster Click Here.
