Sam Moss - Shapes (2020)

By now, the story is familiar: a talented artist spends a great deal of time, effort, and creative energy to record new music; they get excited to release their new project and share it with the world, not just in the digital sphere, but by feeling the pure rush that can only come from performing live. But 2020 had different plans for us all, throwing a wrench into any idealized version of how we meant to spend this year and leaving us ourselves up and make a new plan.

That’s the story for Sam Moss, a balladeer who’s established himself as a local staple around Boston and Camberville’s folk scene. With a slew of albums and EPs already under his belt since 2011, plus regular appearances around area’s most intimate venues – Atwood’s, The Lizard Lounge, etc. – he spent the bulk of 2019 writing and recording his new album Shapes, as well as planning a tour across the country once he released the album. Once quarantine took touring and live performances off the table, Sam felt the need to rethink his release plan.

Although Moss wrote and recorded Shapes months before the COVID pandemic reached a head and a necessary quarantine went into effect, there’s a nigh-prophetic poignancy to the album’s opening lines. “You were unprepared for the way the world came down on you / with a dull, heavy blow, that youthful glow was knocked out of you.” This is the start of opening track “Shapes In The Dark,” a title that feels simultaneously ominous and comforting.
Shapes marks Moss’ fourth LP and operates as a showcase of his sharpest skills: his deft finger-picking guitar style and his gentle, soothing vocal delivery. There’s a purity and honesty in his voice; at certain points – “Opening” for instance – you can hear his voice start to creak at the edges. This isn’t a bad thing; in fact, it’s quite lovely. There’s no standing on ceremony. When he breaks, we break. As the LP winds on, Moss paints melancholic pictures that evoke strong nostalgia. Take “Sunday People,” that paints a picture of an intimate memory among the changing leaves of Fall: “You spoke loudly in my ear, in a melody so gentle / It was a timbre I had known, and not so well forgotten / A space that made less house than home, with warmth and crackling of the autumn.” There is a searching quality to Sam’s lyrics that feels universal, a troubadour seeking some unknown truth coupled with a hope that he has the awareness to recognize that truth when he arrives at it.

With help from talented backing musicians – Stephen Ambra on cello, Michael Siegel on bass, and Benjamin Burns on drums – Moss and Co. deliver a collection of calming and emotionally affecting tunes. Ambra’s cello work especially adds a warm tone to the low end of these tracks, operating effectively as this album’s bass, blending and weaving its way delightfully with the rest of the band’s harmonic elements.

With a firm knock on the nearest wooden object, whenever live performance can return to some semblance of normalcy, it will be enticing to head to a dimly lit bar like Atwood’s to sip on a warm whiskey drink and hear Sam Moss croon away at these new tracks. Moreso, it will be an opportunity for him to bring this music on the road. That’s the folk spirit after all: passing through an ever-changing landscape while gently-plucked guitar strings reverberate into the open air. Moss will be ready, and more deft and adept at his craft when he can get back out there.