The new collection from New Jersey’s Mike Montrey Band, Searching for My Soul, continues with the same impressive combination of R&B, soul, and blues that has so far defined the band’s music and Montrey’s solo efforts. The album has a surprising amount of variation given its seven song length and we can lay much of the responsibility for that at the feet of Montrey’s exceptional compositional talents and his first-class collaborators. Make no mistake – this is a band and not simply some dressed-up solo vehicle. Searching for My Soul is an all-around cohesive statement rather than a singular tour de force.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/mikemontreyband/?hl=en
“I Can’t Wait Any Longer” dismisses any doubts otherwise. The first single from Searching for My Soul was an excellent choice for that spot on a number of scores. It introduces newcomers to the vocal combination of Montrey and Jen Augustine following a template that they adopt for basically all of the material. It introduces listeners to the long array of Montrey and the band’s strengths. The band has roots that are clear to anyone with ears, but it isn’t the end of the story with them, and “I Can’t Wait Any Longer” hints at their elasticity.
“Reno” provides a bevy of evidence for it. The way its words, music, and vocal performance blend together into a filmic soundscape of sorts are one of the album’s truest accomplishments. Shifting the tempo like they do and building the musical arrangement around the piano helps accentuate the lyrics; there’s a lot of space between the notes in this song that helps. “Blue Skies Again” is another of the album’s zeniths. It starts out at a slow roll but soon gathers momentum and emotional force. It turns into one of the album’s blockbuster moments over time, not with one moment, and the vocal pyrotechnics from Montrey and Augustine are, once again, superb.
Emotions continue running high with the aching “Held On to You”, a bittersweet love song that has a lighter touch, in some ways, than the album’s other tunes. It is not markedly different, however, and sweeps listeners through satisfyingly predictable changes played with great skill. It’s the vocals that send this one into the stratosphere, a recurring theme with this album, and it elevates this song from solid to something greater.
They have the same effect on “Listen to Me Roar”. It comes largely during the refrain when Augustine joins him for some of the most heartbreaking plaintive statements you’ll get on this release and beautifully poetic despite their deceptive simplicity. The penultimate track pairs up well with the finale “Searching for the Sun” – a song emphasizing the ultimately hopeful and affirmative quality of Montrey’s songwriting. It’s a litany of modern horrors in some passages, Montrey never views the world through rose-colored glasses, but it’s also the song of a survivor in the end, one who’s looking for tomorrow rather than living in yesterday. It’s this sort of thing that sets the band apart from their brethren and helps make The Mike Montrey Band’s Searching for My Soul one of the 2022’s best efforts.
Chadwick Easton