ROBERT WARREN: Shuster’s Hill

Robert Warren has a new CD out, Shuster’s Hill. While he lacks a big digital footprint, Warren is no stranger to the Santee and East County open-mic scene. He writes original folk songs with a touch of country melancholia. There are no rock crossovers, few happy moments, and his often somber lyrics are carefully considered. That said, there is a rootsy dignity to the sad songs, as they seem to be delivered by a knowing voice of a veteran observer of the human condition–someone who has been there.

Warren recorded the disc at Track Star Studios in La Mesa, and a good production job by Josquin Des Pres recognizes that a spare, almost haunting feel fits his vocal presentation and often minor mode, finger-picked ballads and their stutter-step pacing. Kevin Ryan is heard throughout filling the many spaces in the sound with smart pedal steel accents. Warren’s music has a tendency to sameness in flavor, key, and scope, but within the range he covers, there are many interesting musical offerings.

“King of Pain” tells the listener of his mission as a singer of sad songs: “I’ll take you up to heaven/ And I’ll make you feel like hell.” His vocal is impressive–and needs to be when he adopts the role of the “light that fades to darkness at the ending of each day.” He doesn’t overdo the metaphors, but stops just short. The issue of sameness crops up over the course of the first few tracks when “Mile Marker 104,” the third track, almost sounds like a clone of “King of Pain,” with similar key, meter, and verse melody.

For the title track, Warren tells a story of everyday people from his family–parents and sister, growing up in his home town. It is a highlight, features a delightful break by Ryan, and gives Warren a chance to create lyrical pictures as he tells of how, on the hill, “you can almost hear God’s whisper on the breeze.” He repeats much the same melody for the next tune, “Piece of My Heart,” but it is instead directed at a potential lover, about his history of repeated heartbreaks. “Circus Flyer” takes a different tack as it weaves a first-person tale about an aging circus gypsy on the road, doing aerial stunts without a net in small towns. On Warren’s album, the flyer of course falls spectacularly. “A bright light started shining/ I’m blinded by the glow/ The angels started crying/ We come to take you home.”

Late in the program “Let’s Try” adds keyboards, and Warren is singing about closing a bar and heading home, where his lover waits. The somber part doesn’t take long, though–after their moments together, she leaves, out into a snowstorm. The last track, “Suzy,” is another ode to lost love years after she didn’t give him that dance that might have led to a life together–right up to her suicide. Warren isn’t kidding when he calls himself the King of Pain, and sad songs have their place when done well.