A poignant classically inspired Americana and country infused heartland album, Nick Binkley’s ‘Stardust, Angels, Ghosts!’ brings out the best of old-school with a renewed spin on it. There’s a level of swagger in his vocal delivery, a certain sense of suaveness in the way even the instruments arrangements bellow with character, and a level of assuredness that has you feeling like you’re hearing something matured and well traversed.
Opening with ‘Far from Home’, the record kickstarts with a genuinely forthright and heartfelt Americana piece. While the opening two tracks definitely leave you with a clear direction and sense of what this record is going to be like, I feel it makes a fan of you from ‘Freedom Bells’. There’s a certain poetic magnificence and stature that Nick Binkley quite assertively performs his way into on this piece. The operatic country tune lives and dies off the emotive eloquence of its string arrangement and backing choir, but is so powerfully accentuated by Binkley’s distinctively baritone and commanding vocals. Even the more chirpy and light-hearted tunes have an air of nostalgia and reminiscence to them. ‘Slow Dance’ has that emotion of the times of your lives being played out in front of you. That central message about time being fleeting and the hours being precious hits you really hard. ‘Cause time is short and the music won’t last’.
What makes Stardust, Angels, Ghosts! such a captivating record is the earnestness behind the emotional core of each single on this record. The stories and messages that Nick Binkley conveys are universal and hard to accept all at once. It’s poignantly powerful in the most eloquent way, an Americana record that nails its essence.