Donovan Kovar
"A Deeper Love" CD
Ravok
Records
Genres: rock/pop, soft rock
Feb 9 - 15 2004 |
I read the letter accompanying Donovan Kovar's A Deeper Love
and my mouth watered at the possibility of another shockingly bad
album to tear apart. It had all the perfect credentials: The CD sleeve
was some sort of dreadful yellow/red fractal arrangement; the title of
the CD itself was the ubiquitous cliché "A Deeper Love",
and best of all, Kovar bragged in his letter that he and his
music had been featured on such hit television shows like The Young
and the Restless. Yes, The Young and the Restless, the
profound socio-microcosm compacted into a daytime half-hour, watched
by elderly soap opera addicts. And so it was that I was disappointed
in the listening.
I was disappointed, but only slightly. There wasn't anything
blatantly evident to tear apart when I first listened. No noticeable
void of melody, rhythm, technical ability. Hey, even the songwriting
was somewhat tolerable: "Emotional Ray Bans" and
"Unconditional Love" among the titles and lines that weren't
especially poetic or deep but at least rhymed correctly. Despite
popular opinion, songs really can get much worse than that: cliché,
meaningless, simple words thrown together with a few pauses and line
breaks to make it seem poetic. In the midst of all this rubbish trying to pass itself off as songwriting, there's something
refreshing to be seen in the simple presence of a simple,
well-constructed rhyme to catch our attentions.
However, Kovar's album is marked by just that. The entire
thing is nothing but simple and well-constructed. The technical
ability given on the singing and playing is fine. There's no
showcasing of anything out of the ordinary because there is nothing
out of the ordinary. Kovar's first track, "Think My Own
Way", is pretty ironic in that sense; as the entire album is very
musically traditional. Factory-synthesized programming in the
background just like everything else generic these days, a lyric
booklet with lyrics not worth reading (It's all I can do to
survive/But when the moment breaks away/I'm taken by these feelings
inside), bland 4/4 rhythm in every single moment of the album, and the
same voice that we've all probably got are what define Kovar's
album.
As much as I've said before that so and so element of the album
captures the essence of the whole thing, I think I mean it most when I
mention Kovar's sense of melody. Like the aforementioned rhymes
in his lyrics, Kovar seems to have something else that
everybody else seemed to overlook: a melody. Indeed, each and every
song carries an audible melody. The melody often defines the song,
something that we've perhaps forgotten. It's like the kind of thing
we'd find catchy if we hadn't been beaten to death with it every other
day of our lives. And perhaps that's why music these days is
abandoning the generic sense of rhythm, rhyme and melody and trying to
express itself through other, unforeseen means: it's been over and
done with. Last lines should always be melodramatic and romantic, so
here goes. With A Deeper Love, Donovan Kovar illustrates
that he is the last of a dying breed: the ancient race of music
traditionalists who somehow seem to perpetuate themselves. That was
lousy. And now it's not even the last line. Damn.
64%
Fun Fact: Donovan Kovar's album is put
out by Ravok Records! That's "Kovar" backwards!
ASTOUNDING!
Engelbert K. Mutton
[Vitals: 11 tracks, distributed by the
label, released 2003] |
