Willy Mason Where the Humans Eat

Call it the Oh Brother effect, but recent years have seen a huge resurgence in artists working in traditional styles. Old-time arrangements have wrested a sizeable piece of the market back from glossier genres. Most recently this has been reflected in the number of young folk musicians who have made names for themselves at home in the USA and over here. Devendra Banhart, Sufjan Stevens, and Joanna Newsom came crashing across the Atlantic in 2004, and although they described a somewhat eccentric path, replete with treacherous vocal potholes and lyrical meanders, in Willy Mason, we have just the young man to pave, straighten, and open up this path to the next host of young folkies.

Signed to Conor Oberst's label, Mason has, like the Bright Eyes troubadour, garnered the soubriquet "the next Bob Dylan". Of course, this is bunk, but with a collection of 12 songs, dripping with observational poetry and social conscience one can see where Mason's cannon was forged. From the sleepy community of Martha's Vineyard, Willy Mason grew up in a musical family and has been performing in coffee shops for a fair amount of time -- and he is still only 20 (19 when the album was made).

Mason plays most of the instruments himself, enlisting brother Sam and friends to fill in where necessary. By keeping the arrangements and production simple Mason allows the strength of the songs to shine through. His rich, expressive, Evan Dando-esque tenor deftly delivers on all the tracks. From the outset of Gotta Keep Moving it is clear that this young man has a rare talent for writing a lyric. With a man of such tender years it is not surprising that many of the songs focus on the concerns and frustrations of impending adulthood, the continuous need to keep changing, to keep spreading into unchartered territory, and the necessity to do it all without showing trepidation.

Alongside these endearing accounts of youth and young manhood are wonderfully naive songs of social conscience. Hard Hand to Hold urges the listener to reach out to people less fortunate than themselves, to see shared humanity in everyone, through the tale of reaching young Mason befriending homeless people. And then there's Oxygen, the single, which I could quite happily write out the whole lyric to: "We can be louder than bombs if your singing along and you know that you really believe, we can be richer than industry, as long as you know that there's things that you don't really need." It may sound trite and obvious, but the word naive here is a compliment. Never has anyone sounded less cynical, less jaded, less tarnished and more like they might change the world with this desperately simple philosophy. If, by the end of this song, you are not convinced that we're on the dawn of a compassionate, peaceful, liberal new world order then you've a heart of stone.

But Mason is not without a sardonic reflection on life, Our Town's tale a night spent in the cells, singing songs to appease the inmates, in a New York police station simply after being in the wrong place at the wrong time shows that Mason is living a life to provide grist for a future songwriting mill. And anyone who can develop a song and album title from his pet cats' feeding time is likely to be entertaining us for years to come. When all is said and done, you're chances of finding a more assured and promising debut this year are pretty slim.