Accenting the gilt harmonies with an edge that is strangely as idyllic as the straight-up acoustic parts are, the fretwork in the new single “Rolling Over Me” from Eddie Berman is indeed the perfect complement to our singer’s pipes When he’s got the microphone in front of him in the studio, Berman is a hard man to ignore. He’s got such an ease about him when he’s crooning to us, and “Rolling Over Me” features him sounding perhaps even more in the zone than he has previously. His career is still very young, but with the kind of energy he’s putting into this performance my gut tells me that we’re going to be seeing and hearing a lot from him in the years. This song is the first single from Eddie’s upcoming album ‘Signal Fire,” release date 1/19 by Nettwerk.
The vocal dynamic between Berman and the strings here is stunning, and I think it would be incredible to hear them work together again. There’s no shame in exploiting a viable melodic connection when it’s rendering the tempo as soulful as it does in this performance, and I don’t see why he couldn’t revisit this same framework later on at another tempo. Brilliance is something that you can’t fake into existence, and anyone who listens to the bevy of folk/rock players that come through the underground can attest to what I’m saying. When you’ve got something that works well, you run with it, and that’s what we’re getting in this one-of-a-kind moment that feels like a turning point for the leading man at the helm of the track.
I love the understated instrumental harmony going on in this single that sets the tone for the lyrics well before Berman ever has the chance to start crooning them to us, and overall I don’t know that any of the background players in “Rolling Over Me” could be accused of devoting less of themselves to the material than Berman himself does. There’s too much attention to detail here for there to be anything artificial advancing the narrative; I would anticipate a live performance from this artist and his band sounding pretty similar, if not the same, as what we’re listening to in this studio version of the same song. That’s as unfiltered as it gets, and I’d like to see more of it in folk/rock in general.
As far as the production quality is concerned, “Rolling Over Me” benefits from a top-notch ear for detail and some incredibly well-varnished arranging skills from behind the board, but I don’t think this is the reason for the track’s rapidly swelling success. Eddie Berman is all heart in this performance, and to put anything between the musician and his muse would have been to deny us the true glow of this artistry as it was always meant to be consumed. The devout folk/rock listeners out there who have been aching for something fresh on the left side of the dial are going to eat this up, and with a little time, I could see him ascending in the mainstream scene as well.
Chadwick Easton