Jules Shear

Like John Hiatt and Loudon Wainwright III, Shear is a renowned singer-songwriter from the ’70s who despite meager sales still manages to find labels dedicated to releasing his work — in this case Drexel University’s newly formed MAD Dragon Records. Good for him, good for us, because his songs and his idiosyncratic whine of a voice are never less than arresting. Although his word-twisting, frenetic Polar Bears days are long behind him, his new tunes maintain tension and urgency in a setting that’s truly unplugged. Backing himself with a solitary acoustic guitar and coloring in the aural spaces with cello, viola, and the occasional accordion, Shear pours his heart and a good amount of soul into laments of memory and loss: “Nothing’s Changed” (“Just because your eyes are open/It doesn’t mean you really see/It doesn’t mean that you’re not blind”); “Remembering You” (“When paradise don’t give you up no sparks/It’s just a place between quotation marks”); “Important Part” (“On the other side of your fire/On the other side of worry/You have swallowed your desire/You could drown in your old stories”). He’s been around for a while, but his talent remains undimmed.

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On the Web:

MAD Dragon Records: http://www.maddragonrecords.com/