The first release from Daniel Sherman after partnering with Hendrickson Studios, Chronicles of a Calloused Heart, Part 2 sees the singer-songwriter putting together a series of four short narrative driven short stories that stems from a deeply personal place. Each track has Sherman lamentingly sharing short stories that find him trying to piece his life back together after an experience that had left him closed off to the world. What’s key throughout Sherman’s work is the importance laid to the emotional core and bedrock of each track. It all starts at conception, where Sherman’s notes app on the iPhone is used to dissect and inspect the emotional core of each track in an effort to better conceive the poetry it will be told through. Interestingly, Pt.2 is the first of a two part release where Pt.1 will be released next year.
Beginning with the soft and supple ballad ‘Come As I Am’, you’re pulled into a sweeping and soppy folk pop tune that’s incisively emotional but loaded with an arrangement that has scale which inspires you. Almost unnoticeably, the song transitions seamlessly into ‘Terrified’, a much softer and supple piece which allows the piano to really strut its stuff. Perhaps the best piece on the record is its flagship ballad, ‘I Was Wrong’. Here Sherman’s vocal performance is definitively a step ahead and the arrangement, composition, and flow is all wonderfully poignant.
A majestic and touching folk record that’s vulnerable, open, and deeply impactful.