Jason Myles Goss A Name to Watch For

JASON MYLES GOSS

Radio Dial

Jeswaldo Sounds

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Years ago I heard Jason Myles Goss singing on the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and thought he was the proverbial real deal. Hey, when I’m right, I’m right!  Radio Dial, his fourth album, is the sort you’ll spin once and keep on spinning. Folksingers hit the road a lot, and Goss has apparently seen sides of America where hope and despair are flat mates. There are several semiautobiographical songs about dreamers in down-at-the-heels factory towns. That same bittersweet edges appear elsewhere. “Hospital Shirt” is a song abut coming to terms with cancer, one in which plastic tubes drip medicine, prayers, and reality; “New York City,” captures all that is wonderful, tragic, magical, and terrifying about the Big Apple. A real standout is “Bright Lights,” a boxer’s one shot at either glory or obscurity. This superb record is folk that rocks, courtesy of a crisp backing cast on percussion and electric instruments. Goss still has room to grow as a writer—too many repeated words and fillers—but he is a keen observer who isn’t afraid to plumb life’s barbed depths.--Rob Weir

Sample this superb album at: http://jasonmylesgoss.bandcamp.com/