Terry Blade had an intention and vision with his latest record. Highlighting the roots of Black music in America, the multi-faceted artist seeks to showcase the presence of Americana within Black music culture, he delivers a stripped down, bare-bones record that’s so poignantly powerful from back to front. “Ethos: Son of a Sharecropper” takes a deeply vulnerable and personable route. The stripped down nature of the entire record, with simple acoustic melodies and that distinctive Americana tonality pervading across the entire piece gives the record its emotional core that allows the stories come from. But it’s within the songs that Terry Blade allows the vocals to really shine that Ethos finds its footing.
On “Rigor Mortis”, you start to see the vision behind the record really to shape. The vocal harmonies here are more pronounced, more intoxicating, almost pop inspired at moments. It combines the more restrained subtlety of what the genre stands for with modern sensibilities so seamlessly. Others, like “Talk About It” see Terry Blade really strutting his own vocal chops, with the chorus truly showcasing the full range that this immensely talented singer-songwriter carries at his disposal. On no two songs does Blade really sound the same either. “Jimmy James” sees the Chicago based talent bring out a starkly different performance, slightly shaky but somehow composed and mature all at once.
An Americana album with something different to tell, with stories that are personal and a soul that offers new perspective on the genre and soundscapes you’ve typically come to associate with it, “Ethos: Son of a Sharecropper” thrives in how vulnerable and raw the record is as a whole. Terry Blade is immensely talented both as a vocalist and a song-writer, and each song on this record showcases a different facet of that personality.