Reviewed by Paul Poulton

Singer/songwriter Jerimae Yoder hails from Indiana and this is his third CD. It's remarkably colourful. You are going to have to get used to his fragmented approach to songwriting though. If I could come clean and say that I'm a groove type of guy, so it's not too easy for me to get into Jerimae's quixotic style, but I have given 'Vertical' several spins and while the songs take awhile to settle into some sort of shape that I can get a handle on, there are copious amounts of layers and textures to grab the listener's attention while waiting for the metre to emerge. Jerimae describes his music as "modern acoustic", but there are a goodly proportion of overdriven guitars on here. His singing is not as you might imagine from an acoustic singer, he has quite an edge at times and now and again the singing is not unlike a shouting. The spiritual dimension is undoubtedly important to this son of a Mennonite - he weaves scriptural themes neatly into sonic landscape.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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