by Mark McConville

This album is an entrance into a bleak but honest portrayal of a broken life. Hear Your Voice Again, by Ohio based singer/songwriter Jake Ciccotelli who plays under his stage name Overgrow, is a complex and decisive push on sound. The musician clearly hurts and doesn’t fabricate his pain but lets it become a topic throughout his muse and music, and this only adds tension to the mix. Starving for clarity and hope, he sings about lost love, lost causes, broken foundations, stifled dreams. This makes for a harsh listen but one which is compelling and inspirational.

Ciccotelli breaks down at points on this album. He raises his vocals and plays his guitar in a frenzied but pure fashion, entertaining us and trying to expel the demons from his mind. His mind is cluttered, there’s no doubting that, and these venomous thoughts and feelings serve up a lyrical melting pot, full of drastic details regarding death and hopelessness. Pessimism attacks the senses; it is studded into the framework of Hear Your Voice Again, but it doesn’t impair the fluidity or grandiosity of a truly remarkable play on emotion.

Sinking into the misery, Ciccotelli has created 7 songs worthy of praise. The distinctive sound offers more than 3 chords, as this isn’t punk rock or a fast assault on the ears. It’s soft, it’s somber, and it’s melancholic. By rising above the flock that occupies the emo sector, the bands and artists that use emotion as a template, Ciccotelli has made an album brimming with lyrical ingenuity. And he’s a dreamer who wishes to search for optimism in the stars and beyond.

Hear Your Voice Again has balance. The instrumentals are dazzling as Ciccotelli becomes a purveyor of dreamy acoustics. His guitar is his aid, and on this compendium, he plays it fearlessly, intricately tinkling those chords majestically. Throughout the course of the record, it all clicks into place perfectly, and that’s what we need in a world masked by madness.

“New Light” starts the album impeccably. That acoustic tinge complements Ciccotelli vocals and the singer conveys through his lyricism broken homes and headstones. It is bleak songwriting, but this musician, with talent in droves, is letting it all burst from his mind. “Say Nothing” opens with an acoustic blend, and Ciccotelli sings a brilliantly created chorus. Dreams are decaying, and he’s on the warpath here. “Unraveling” commands us to listen. A piano opens the song up and Ciccotelli vocalizes the situation he is in. He wants to get better and be free of undesirable memories. “Spin” is another acoustic gem and fits well into the fabric. The lyrics are spellbinding, conveying an upbeat storyline at the start.

Overgrow aka Jack Ciccotelli has created a mesmerizing album. A record describing the human condition vividly. And this musician has so many more stories to tell.    

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