Quite often, I receive unexpected emails with a new release in my inbox from an extremely reliable PR company, Polymath PR. I am forever getting new music to listen to and give my opinion on in reviews that is both appreciated my them, but also the bands that work with them, and that really is something that keeps you going even on your worse days. Every once in a while though, you are sent something special, and this bit of special has been something extremely difficult to sit down and write about thanks to how personal it feels. A quick read up on the press release lists CJ Orazi as an acoustic blues rock musician, something I am always partial to. What it doesn’t prepare you for though is the pure intimacy of the music. The gentle sounds of sorrow being plucked out from inside, the lyrical poetry brought to life with great dynamics, forcing you to stop and listen. Softly starts the album with ‘Your Man’, a song of hope if you will, but then the joys of the delta sounding ‘Tied Up’, before the tender ‘She Loves Me (Not)’. It all takes you on a long journey of life, and just as you start the get content, the heartbreak comes with ‘Cancer’. It isn’t all serious though, with an amusing out take by the end of ‘Expectations’, but it gets back to business with ‘Pride’ and a familiar sounding album closer, ‘Martyr’.
CJ really has an album that lives up to its name, and it is an album you can find joy and happiness in, as well as finding heartbreak and sorrow, every emotion is covered. To sit down and write these, and be willing to share them too really has CJ almost give a part of himself to each and every person that listens. The beauty in it being that there is something everyone can connect with as it pulls on your heartstrings.
