Sammy Kay – July 1960 LP (Engineer Records, Sell The Heart Records)

“July 1960” is the latest full-length album by Sammy Kay, a critically acclaimed Asbury Park, New Jersey-based singer-songwriter. The album consists of ten excellent compositions that will suit even the pickiest listeners. Soundwise, Sammy Kay combines the singer-songwriter approach with some of the finest properties borrowed from Americana, indie folk, folk rock, and folk punk. He uses all these styles as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift his music to new heights while remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction he’s widely known for. These experimentations resulted in a comprehensive collection of catchy, memorable, engaging songs, suitable for any mood, situation, and occasion.

Sammy Kay’s raspy voice serves as a centerpiece of this material. He seamlessly navigates low, mid, and high notes while commanding attention and guiding the listener through each song. His sincere, confident, and emotive vocal harmonies emphasize each segment and instrumentation, making this album such a pleasant listening experience worth revisiting over and over again. In the meantime, the entire amalgam of instrumentation shapes such a mesmerizing backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. The calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal chord progressions are upfront, giving more than necessary support for dominant leads and accentuations delivered on harmonica. You’ll also notice some marvelous sonic maneuvers supplied by pedal steel guitar, mellotron, and piano that undoubtedly give more complexity and depth to these songs and make this entire sonic voyage even more pleasing. The equally intricate, warm-sounding low-ends contributed by the outstanding upright bass performance offer even more heaviness, clarity, and depth to these songs while the occasional trombone appearance spices things up.

With an impressive sonic arsenal like this, Sammy Kay delivers heartfelt performances where raw emotion and polished instrumental sounds resonate with precision and finesse, providing a set of compositions about friendships, relations, love, and other topics that define life and us as human beings. His poetic lyricism and honesty will immediately grab your attention and you’ll hold this album as one of the favorites in your record collection. Tracks like “How Fast To Run,” “Greyhound Bus,” “Love Song,” “Another Letter To My Former Self,” “Jim’s Ride Home,” “Skeletons,” and “Meet You In Mexico” are standouts, but you should pay attention to the entire material, as “July 1960” is probably the best singer-songwriter album you’ll hear this year. This fine piece of artistry is available on Coke bottle clear and black vinyl via Engineer Records and Sell The Heart Records, and you can also snag a limited edition vinyl with screen printed cover via Sammy Kay’s Bandcamp page. Don’t miss it!