Sean McConnell has a gruff voice and plays in a down-to-earth rock style suggesting he’s an ordinary working-class guy with a guitar like Bruce Springsteen, of whom he’s a self-professed fan. Like the Boss, McConnell poeticizes and philosophies from everyday personal experiences. What does it mean to be locked in our own skin? Whose face is that in the mirror? Are memories golden or just rose-colored foolery? He addresses these types of existential questions with honest doubt. The singer-songwriter knows there are no answers. Like Socrates, he believes that an unexamined life is not worth living. We gain a deeper understanding of what everything means by examining one’s own life.
McConnell recently turned 40 years old, and his are the musings of a middle-aged man. He knows he was once a stupid kid but is older and wiser now. Twenty years from now, the person he is today will seem like a stupid kid. Still, he recognizes that his love for his wife and others is the most important fact of life. Growing older not only brings one closer to death but also to the life that went unlived. He sees a devil inside us all, but that’s also where our better angels live. On a large scale, there may not be a grand scheme in the grand scheme of things. What we directly live through is all that there is.
The singer-songwriter turns his personal observations into pithy declarations and playful inventions. “Progress is always heretical,” the singer coyly croons on “The West Is Never Won”. The more we learn, the less we know, except maybe we are always wrong. We must accept that we don’t comprehend anything but think we do. The koan-type lyrics offer the wisdom of uncertainty. This can be colorfully illustrated in Sean McConnell’s use of observational metaphors.
For example, we are all scared rabbits in a carnival world, he proclaims on “Glasgow Rain”. There is simultaneously something humorous and sad going on. His songs tend to begin as statements and end as questions. “There is a contradiction in the songs I sing,” McConnell observes in “Southside of Forever”. Life is not easy. All we can do is keep going on. He understands that he is no closer to the truth than ever before, and this is his 11th full-length album in ten years!
That doesn’t mean McConnell hasn’t learned anything. He finds the love of his wife and family to be of upmost importance, the devil lives within us all as do our better angels, and that we all have burdens. He’s not telling us anything we don’t know, but he artfully presents them to make us think and feel. His voice is front and center. He generally does not whisper or shout. There is an intimacy to the delivery that invites us to ponder our values and assumptions. The singer doesn’t profess greater knowledge but engages in a dialogue with the listener.
Of course, he cannot hear us. Sean McConnell’s music is full of spaces where the instrumentation floats between the words for us to ponder what was just sung. McConnell sings lead and plays guitar and drums, and he is backed by Justin Tocket (bass), Ben Alleman (keys), Taylor McCall (guitars), and Logan Todd (drums). They largely keep the arrangements simple but play with strong energy as needed. Other times, the band members keep their volume down to create a more reflective atmosphere. The general mood could be best described as introspective.
“It almost took me 40 years to figure out / That the call was coming from inside the house,” McConnell notes on the title tune. We live in a horror movie where everybody dies. It’s our shared destiny. No one is to blame. Doctors know that “skin” is the human body’s largest organ. It protects us and separates us from each other, making the miracle of human touch possible. The album asks us to imaginatively contemplate that enigma.