Tropics
“Blame”
Rapture (out 02.17.15 on Innovative Leisure)
Home has always been a central theme of young songwriter Chris Ward’s sublime, evocative music, culminating with 2013’s quality, Home & Consonance. Though the Southampton native comes off as reserved and camera shy, his best work is intimate and direct, pulling the listener’s face close while it whispers Ward’s secrets, fears, and feelings to you without reserve. It lets you into that home he cherishes.
“Blame” is another example of , as he pines for the death of a relationship that he admits culpability for. If delivered wrong, lyrics like “Blame me for all of it / Come back home” evaporate into vapid cliché, but Ward sounds genuinely heartsick here, stewing over the remains of something important that he let slip through his fingers. It’s the kind of crime you only realize you committed after it’s too late to fix it. It may not be a track you want to relate to, but I bet it’s one you will relate to.
