Mark Eitzel – Hey Mr Ferryman

The concept of Mark Eitzel as the definitive critically acclaimed, commercially ignored songwriter has never really lost traction. Partly because Eitzel has yet to achieve global fame but also because he remains a staggeringly good songwriter. While his American Music Club era(s) saw Eitzel canonised as the heart-wrenching, torture singer of love and fury, Hey Mr. Ferryman continues in the vein of 2012’s Don’t Be A Stranger, in lessening the self-laceration in favour of a far more reasoned and, dare I say, pop-friendly approach.

Of course, Eitzel’s co-conspirator this time around is Bernard Butler who not only administers a very sympathetic production to Eitzel’s songs, letting them breathe and find their own space amid the typically rich lyricism but also works as a masterful guitar foil, weaving his way in and around the entire album.

Crucially, the grain in Eitzel’s voice has shifted from anguish to empathy; particularly in opening track The Last Ten Years and gorgeous album standout An Answer, Eitzel’s gentle croon belies a bruised beauty, imparting wisdom. And of course, the black humour is still intact: In My Role As Professional Singer and Ham is perhaps the archetypal Mark Eitzel song title (echoing American Music Club’s ‘In My Role As The Most Hated Singer In The Local Underground Music Scene’) yet is couched in a sumptuous string-laden arrangement, gliding to a triumphant glissando-like coda.

On Hey Mr Ferryman, Eitzel no longer exudes such a colossal sense of searing introspection; perhaps he has finally reconciled with himself and, in Butler, has found the perfect foil to achieve this harmony.

Listen to: An Answer, In My Role As Professional Singer and Ham