Play 90 second soundbite of 'State Of Affairs' @ 'CD quality'
On one track, 'To Mine', Costa cries out, '..let your voice be heard from mountain tops around the world..', well, he certainly gives it a good go, and them some!! Costa puts aggressive energy and genuine pained torment into his singing and his thumpin', honest guitar chords are a great foil to his cutting vocal delivery.
'Onwards & Upwards' is a generally stripped down acoustic work that finds Costa as a bit of a one-man-band laying down his hard strummed guitar, pained harmonica and a few sympathetic keys. Jared Costa's distinctive songs are melodic, story-telling and pertinent. Think of a poetic, observational Dylan vying for prominence with the industrious reality of Springsteen with a just hint of growling but soulful Cash and you'd be somewhere close to Jared Costa's inimitable style. His brash individualistic approach to musical delivery is extremely vibrant and uniquely direct; there's no mistaking this guy's belief and confidence in his capabilities and/or his songs - Costa really seems to 'live' the words as he pounds and cries out his songs with nothing short of infectious gusto and annoyingly abrupt but irresistible fierceness.
Costa takes no prisoners as he tells it like it is and gives it his all; even when he takes the pressure down a few notches there's still a overwhelming feeling of absolute belief in his outpourings. This aint acoustic music for tender ears, this is hair-raising, nerve-jangling stuff quite unlike most of his contemporaries. Costa's vocal boldness ensures that he will never be talked of as just a run-of-the-mill acoustic artist; Jared Costa sits squarely inside the bounds of folk-rock and amazingly this guy doesn't need a 'band' to generate the density and depth required to meet the genre criteria, with his big voice and muscular playing he's more than able to deliver the goods as a soloist.
'Onwards & Upwards' by Jared Costa is an impressive piece of work - in no way could it be described as 'pretty' flowery music, it's harsh and it's bordering on angry but, it's fascinating and pretty damn compelling!
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