If there is one skill that Justin Nozuka has mastered, it is the art of repeating himself. Not just once or twice, but frequently, throughout almost every songs on his new album, You I Wind Land and Sea. It is almost as if he could not think of any other lyrics to put in, so he gave up and decided it would be best to sing the same thing over and over, changing the musical lines for each song. His voice is soothing, but certain words can get really annoying quickly. Some might remember Nozuka as the one-hit wonder responsible for ""After Tonight,"" in which he began this sometimes obnoxious repetition.
The redundancy issue aside, though, Nozuka has a great singing voice and is easy to listen to. In ""Gray,"" the first track on the album, the lyrics and music work together as a mantra, creating an altogether soothing listen. It leaves the listener in a trance, only to be woken when the beat picks up a little at the end of the song. The music here adds a stronger beat, imitating African tribal percussion. The mix-up is nice in the end, but it would have been nice to haveseen Nozuka do something more with the lyrics than monotonously repeating, ""Come take my soul away / my soul away / take my soul away / soul away."" We get it.
If you put aside the lack of distinguishing lyrics, Nozuka is very talented. His voice is relaxing, and the music is never too out of control so that it becomes overwhelming. The instrumentation he uses is relatively simple, using mostly acoustic guitar, piano and some drums.
In the title track, we hear a change in music for the first time on the album. The song starts out right away with a fast, upbeat tempo and with Nozuka singing in a huskier voice. The rest of the album is pretty mellow, with similar music throughout most of the songs.
Both ""Carried You"" and ""Heartless"" start out with what sounds like a similar mood from the accent of the inital downbeat, only in a slightly different chord. They go in different directions as soon as the second chord hits creating an entirely changed atmosphere than the previous song through harmonic direction, rhythmic attack and tempo.
Putting aside all obvious annoyance with his redundant song writing, Nozuka has produced a decent album. He is talented enough in the singing department to overlook his lack of lyrical creativity.
