By Brian Tucker

If there’s ever bad news to be heard the effect would be lessened by having Mike Blair sing it to you as an impromptu song. In all fairness, Blair can sing about pain and heartache and make it sound, and likely make you feel, like a spring day.

No matter the lyrics his voice takes it somewhere else, as if tricking you out of the reality of his lyrics. That’s not to say all of Blair’s music is melancholy with sugar on top, it’s simply that Blair has a soothing voice and it shines on new release The Print.

Blair has been performing in the area for years and his voice is akin to a huskier James Taylor and a timbre like a sweeter, less obtrusive version of Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz. Musical explanations aside, Blair is his own singer, competent and confident. Working with his band of solid musicians The Stonewalls, they highlight Blair’s songwriting as well as temperament for crafting acoustic music that comforts and just as easily puts the sway in your spine.

The Print is a gently textured EP of five songs about regret, errors and fractured love. On “Tell Me Again” Blair sings with reserve, “Tell me again about how you don’t love me as much as I love you.” He’s a narrator in need of facing the pain of a dying relationship to somehow make it all go away. On “Believer” he sings of personal failure and delusion, “She lied and she played the role,” all done with sorrow and necessary distraction.  

The best song is “I Won’t Be There” which also highlights the strengths of the band on The Print. It paints a vivid image of losing the closeness of a partner and inability to let go. Musically it’s a pleasant, strolling number yet about something gut wrenching, about having to live apart. For a brilliant song deeply sad and musically tender, Blair and the band play it with considerable moderation. Sarah Blair’s discreet backing vocals on it make it all the more haunting and desperate.

“Do You Want Me” takes the theme of intimacy to a far more appealing, and subtle, place that’s sorely vacant in popular music. Blair sings, “Slowly you let me hold you/To feel the ocean in my chest,” painting a clear and simple picture. “Daisy,” written by Mike and Sarah Blair, is a near anthem given its chorus but its story about a man in prison waiting to come home grounds the feel-good vibe of the song.

Years ago Blair released Burning Down Rome, a live recording whose playing revealed a solid musician and an equally solid performer, someone at ease with a crowd and able to be open and honest. The honesty and sincerity comes through on The Print coming five years after Burning Down Rome, where bittersweet and tender color real life with a great soundtrack. If real life be troubling then Mike Blair and The Stonewalls make it more palatable.