Free / Man, a music outlet of English singer-songwriter Charlie Freeman announced a reissue and retrospective of “Truth,” a critically acclaimed debut full-length album released in 2018. This reissue arrives ahead of the extensive tour and “Gift In The Shadows,” his upcoming album slated for release in 2015. Today, we’ll talk more about “Watchtower,” one of the tracks from “Truth.” For those stumbling upon this exceptional artist for the first time, Charlie Freeman combines a singer-songwriter approach with several complementary music genres to illustrate such luxuriant sonic imagery. Perhaps acoustic rock comes to mind first, but don’t be surprised if you stumble upon some of the finest properties borrowed from folk rock, indie folk, indie rock, indie pop, and other similar styles. Free / Man uses all these additional elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details that elevate his music to new heights while he remains loyal to the primary sonic direction. Each sonic ingredient has its place and purpose, making this epic sonic voyage even more enjoyable and worth repeating over and over again. Therefore, these experimentations with different music genres resulted in a catchy, engaging, memorable composition that will unquestionably appeal to even the pickiest music enthusiasts.
As soon as you press play, you’ll notice that Free / Man poured heart and soul into this song. “Watchtower” arrives with a perfect structure, garnered with many detailed segments, brilliant ideas, and marvelous instrumentations. His songwriting, composing, arranging, and producing abilities shine during each moment. Still, his passionate, sincere, confident, emotive, powerful vocal performance steals the show here. You’ll notice how these vocal harmonies command attention and guide the listening apparatus, decorating everything he intended to achieve with this track. The impressive vocal range seamlessly balances low, mid, and high notes with precision and finesse, emphasizing each segment and instrumentation. In the meantime, the interplay between guitars and synths shapes a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. You’ll stumble upon a comprehensive collection built upon calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal chord progressions, harmonies, melodies, and other sonic delicacies while the subtle synth ambiances spice things up and elevate everything to an entirely new level. Free / Man also incorporated some themes and leads, delivered on harmonica. This addition gives more emotional depth and complexity to an already intricate structure, proving that Charlie Freeman thought about even the tiniest details and nuances while writing and composing this song. Also, it’s nearly mindblowing how all these orchestrations perfectly suit Freeman’s soulful vocal performance.
Of course, this epic sonic journey wouldn’t be complete without an impressive rhythm section. You’ll hear how all those equally intricate, vividly hearable, warm-sounding basslines rumble beneath the harmonica, guitars, and synths, providing more than necessary heftiness, clearness, and deepness while binding all these instrumentations with rhythmic patterns. These low-ends are warm, rich, dense, and heavy, offering more power to the ambiance. In the meantime, the tastefully assembled, flawlessly performed, well-accentuated, moderate beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics keep everything in line while dictating groove and tempo. These rhythmic sequences are subtle and calm but powerful enough to drive the remainder of the orchestrations forward. As you can see, Charlie Freeman thought about everything while working on this track, so if the guitars, synths, and harmonica serve as a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon, then the bass guitar and drums act as a backbone, holding everything together.
“Watchtower” is one of those songs where Charlie Freeman’s experience, knowledge, skills, and talent shine in the limelight. With marvelous vocal harmonies, catchy chord progressions, lush synths, ear-appealing harmonica themes, intricate basslines, and excellent drumming parts, this song vividly showcases what you might expect from the remainder of the album if you somehow missed the initial release of “Truth” back in 2018. Alongside this marvelous song, “Truth” is a masterpiece you should immediately place on your music radar because it showcases all the brilliance of Charlie Freeman. The song and the album are available on all streaming platforms. Don’t miss it!
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