ALBUM: The Silver City by Jeremy Messersmith

I included a track from Jeremy Messersmith's album The Silver City on our Sing The States post for Virginia, but I've been enjoying the record so much I need to give it its own post altogether.

It's a loose concept album inspired by the real Silver City of Minneapolis, where Messersmith calls home. He explores the city through the stories of those who travel to and from it each day, making their daily commutes seem a little more mystical in his re-telling. While it's not a strict concept album, the songs are surprisingly cohesive and the record plays with an almost story-like arc as we follow his characters in and out of the city. There's also a strong vehicular theme, with songs called "The Commuter", "The Skyway", and "Light Rail", and lyrics like "The funny thing about planes, cars, trucks and bullet-trains is they'll take you places, yeah". He seems to be fascinated by what brings his characters to the city literally as well as figuratively.

Stylistically, Messersmith often wears his influences on his sleeve, and you could almost match each song with who inspired it. "Dead End Job" is The Shins a la Oh, Inverted World, "Franklin Avenue" is spot-on Elliott Smith, "The Commuter" is fellow mid-western balladier Sufjan Stevens, and "Light Rail" is late-era Beatles. Despite this, his songwriting is solid and the songs are well crafted and thoughtfully executed. While he still has some growing to do stylistically, he's already accomplished that most elusive thing in music, and that is to write honest and affecting songs. I'd be willing to bet this is one of the best albums you missed last year.

Jeremy Messersmith - Franklin Avenue
from the album The Silver City (Amazon/iTunes)


Jeremy Messersmith - Miracles
from the album The Silver City (Amazon/iTunes)

SING THE STATES #10: Virginia

I love Virginia. As a kid living near D.C. I had an inexplicable affinity for the state - so much so that for my whole second-grade year after we moved to California, I told people I'd lived in Virginia, not Maryland. For some reason that I can't remember, my little 8-year-old brain thought it was cooler to be from Virginia, even though half the kids I knew probably didn't know where that was anyway.

Years later, after high school, I spent about a year living in the western part of Virginia - in Lexington, Roanoke and Vinton. And I can honestly say, VA is one of the most stunningly beautiful parts of the country that I've been to. Anyone who's ever seen the Shenandoah Valley in the fall, or driven the Blue Ridge Parkway in the spring would probably agree. I think everyone should spend some time in Virginia. Especially lovers, according to the t-shirts and postcards.

And that includes "broken-hearted lovers", according to Jeremy Messersmith in the song below. Jeremy's a writer of sweet, wispy pop ballads from Minneapolis who stole my heart with this song last year, off his record The Silver City. He strikes a great balance between the insightful singer-songwriter and the indie pop type, never falling perfectly into either camp - but instead finding a blissfully perfect nitch in between. Enjoy!

Also considered: Foo Fighters - Virginia Moon; The Greyboy All-stars - Quantico, VA; The Rolling Stones - Sweet Virginia; The National - You've Done It Again, Virginia

Jeremy Messersmith - Virginia
from the album The Silver City (Amazon/iTunes)


Check out the rest of our SING THE STATES posts!