Listening to Harlan Wells’ Waiting for June was an unanticipated and surprising journey of discovery.
The album opens with Lonesome Road and I immediately thought outlaw county but this album has so much more to offer than that.
Within the first few songs, Waiting for June also displays lighter tones of country-rock.
Harlan Wells himself offers listeners a clear voice to latch onto with a subtle hint of a husky rasp to add another dimension to the music and adds a little character and cohesion to the songs.
However, Waiting for June did not carry on as just a rough and tough country-rock album as initially expected. By the sixth song it was easy to see the album also had a more sorrowful, bluesy side.
These were my original thoughts on Waiting for June.
When I reached Strong it was the first song I was disappointed with. It came off as forcefully enlightened and generic (but I think that could be the Judaism-based Christian tones coming through). Wells’ talent never waivers but such music can get a little monotonous to itself with its singular messages of heavenly love and strength, hence the “generic-ness.”
Even though Wells’ kept the rasp in his voice the song seemed quite out of line with the rest of the album — at first.
Once Strong was fully digested, the eighth of 11 tracks, which heavily references Noah and the flood, it changed the flavour of many of the songs on the album, including Lonesome Road to music with similar vibes.
This surprise discovery showed me there really is more to Waiting for June than initially meets the ear and listeners can continue to peel back the layers time after time.
The fact that Wells created something so iridescent that will be able to take on and show off different components depending on who’s listening is the mark of a master musical artisan.
While the lyrics of certain songs may not interest the less religiously or spiritually inclined there’s no denying Wells’ talent or the astounding accompanying music that married each track seamlessly.