Going on a Journey with Evan Sky
Brilliant is the word that comes to mind to describe Evan Sky, and his 2025 album Evan Sky & the Clouds contains all the proof anyone would need to support that notion. He is no doubt an inventive songwriter, but his particular brand of brilliance extends far beyond lyrics, meaning, and form, and into the mystic arts of groove-ology, hooks, and even synthesizers. There is an unhurried feel to this roomy collection of songs. Paired with Evan’s understated, oaky vocal delivery, the album moves effortlessly from well-crafted song to well-crafted song.
It would be remiss not to first acknowledge the evident humanity present within the finished product, stretching into the territory of “raw” or “DIY,” sonically. One may notice a passing note that might seem just a tad off, or a mild plosive consonant sneak through the vocal mic - all of which are presumed intentional choices here, and artifacts that can be heard on great works throughout the history of recorded music, as well. But if the faceless music factory of the present era has gotten us used to an unblemished and unsurprising landscape of sucrose sounds, Evan Sky & the Clouds is a lovely antidote for those looking to break free. For those already initiated, it provides more evidence that real quality needs very little polishing.
1. Journey
“Journey” welcomes the listener to this feature presentation obviously and delightfully. “If you want to live / well it’s time for that journey to begin” as the hook serves both this opening song and the full album in acting as an overture for themes established later on. It is a solo-filled, vintage-feeling minor jam with slinky chromatic descending bass and a ride cymbal groove. The sustained space and clever restraint across the six minutes makes this a great opener.
2. Karma
“Karma” brings 90’s & 2000’s pop punk energy with its gleeful and confident assertion that what goes around does come back around. The lyrics in the song’s bridge allude to some unpleasantness, describing “countless nights alone at 1am” and an antagonist that “wouldn’t even answer the goddamn phone.” What would be the logical next step musically after such a tangible pain? Guitar solo, baby. The energy of the song continues to its natural peak until the final punch lands and Sky concludes: “Five years of my life went down the drain but hey what’s new / you’re gonna get what’s coming to you.”
3. Petunia
“Petunia” is up next and executes a seamless stylistic pivot to acoustic folk-rock. Put plainly, this song is fantastic and powerful. The energy in the guitar, the toe-tapping pull of the percussion, the melody, the background vocals, and the pauses all pull the listener in to experience the grief contained by Evan’s beautiful and cryptically heavy lyrics. The chorus, a parable about loss and transience, dressed up in floral disguise like a Shakespeare sonnet, asks, “Petunia, are you down by the river? Petunia, did you die from the winter?” No matter how one chooses to analyze it, this song hits hard.
4. House
The fourth one up is “House,” an acoustic, fingerpicking-driven ballad poetically lamenting the realization that even the coziest “homes” can become haunted. By this point, it is easy to recognize this track as your average Evan Sky song — beautifully written, deceptively clever, and enjoyable from beginning to end. Without the presence of bass or percussion, Sky’s guitar work gives his lyrics a sturdy and spacious place to live. Finally, perhaps the most exciting element arrives just shy of the two-minute mark: the “ghost” of this story starts singing along, in the form of a synthesizer lead.
5. Red Tape
“Red Tape” coming in as track five begins with a nice, mellow acoustic guitar part. Then enters the rest of the band, with drum and bass tones reminiscent of the great acoustic-emo acts of the 2000’s. “Red Tape” is another deceptively well-written song that operates like a love song at face value. Yet, as both its title and Start Track's write-up would suggest, this song also functions as an indictment of bureaucracy's entirely conditional acknowledgement of humanness under its inhumane and indifferent demands.
6. Carpenter
“Carpenter” is a welcomed reprieve, in the form of a piano driven pop number, that stands out for its lovely, restrained percussion and top-notch walking bass line. “I’m not your carpenter, I can’t fix your life” Sky sings, seemingly acknowledging to the listener the universality of brokenness.
7. True Love
“True Love” dances in with funky, playful timing on the verses and the declaration that “true love can be traced by the lines of a graph.” Sky slips these words in among other, less controversial but just as thought-provoking musings about true love. Also notable is the curveball right at the end of the instrumental coda, in which Sky and his Clouds give us a b6 - b7- I resolution, and thus a preview of the next song.
8. Woodstock
Watch out listeners, this one starts with sound effects and a big fat dominant seventh chord. Sure enough, the ensuing waltz is a self-aware tale of a tree falling onto the car of a man staying at an AirBnB property in Upstate New York. Following this disaster, the man must take a scooter back to Long Island where his friends listen to his tale of woe and respond by assuring him “Go Diego, we’re all rooting for you.” Sky fakes out the listener with two conceptual narrative endings before even reaching the double time guitar solo that steamrolls to the nearly seven minute mark — plenty of time to ponder the mighty oaks in your life. It is also worth mentioning the appearance of the “Wilhelm scream”, though you’ll have to find it on your own.
9. Song for No One
After the sprawling snark of “Woodstock," "Song for No One" rambles in at one minute and forty-nine seconds of hard-panned and doubled vocals, and bass work that can only be described as killer. The song grooves with a light, jazz-pop swing feel and a tasty, ascending chromatic progression. “I can’t think of anything to say” says the endlessly witty songwriter on track number nine of his 14-song, 59-minute album.
10. Manifest
By the time the listener arrives at “Manifest,” there is almost a full circle moment that brings to mind the earnest concepts raised in the beginning half of the album. After a keys intro, Sky sings:
“I pictured a garden blooming in the spring
and the gifts that mother earth would bring.
Out on the front porch of my favorite daydream
I realized this is what life means.
If you want to be happy,
just see it in your head,
Every day before you go to bed.
And maybe I’m crazy but those dreams aren’t out of reach
as long as you can practice what you preach.”
In addition to a great pop groove and earworm melody, “Manifest” makes great use of negative sonic space (think: rests, silence, etc.) before including a wild, expanding pyramid of synths towards the end. Within the “Journey” motif, “Manifest” reassures “we’ll figure out the path, just keep on looking at the end my friend.”
11. Maybe
Is this a love song? Perhaps. “Maybe” brings vivid uncertainty and self doubt (and not just about being able to discern between the sound of a clavinova or a harpsichord in the instrumentation). Throughout the intro there are wonderful winks at great, pop love songs. Sky’s bridge makes use of silence to express a few different layers of contained feelings, singing first “why is it so hard to tell you what is on my mind? / And every time I do it I just get left behind” and then “I was so blind I lost sight.” It can be argued that these lines are almost contradicted by the confidence in his next phrase “now I’m so sure I know that’s it’s right,” giving the song a positive, happy ending.
12. First World Blues
At number twelve on the record, “First World Blues” is another sub-two-minute song, and as the pattern would suggest, this fact makes it a gem of a song. The reality-proof instructions on gratitude and the playful way of encouraging perspective are just two of the driving forces that make this song work. Most of all, this song shines with its hook, which is — kid you not — trochaic pentameter: “someone’s having a shittier day than you.”
That’s right, boys and girls, we’ve got five feet (hence, pentameter) and each foot leads with a stressed syllable. That’s the opposite of an iamb, as this author is sure we all remember well.
For the whiteboard:
/ / / / /
Someone’s having a shittier day than you
13. Without You
“Without You” is Evan Sky & the Clouds at full funkiness. Complete with a Jackson Five groove, Stevie Wonder-esque keys, and a bass line that would make Carol Kaye smile, the energy of this song almost belies the weight of its subject matter. Lines like “We can be okay, this I know is true / we can be okay, even without you” call the grief of “Petunia” to mind again. “Without You" also directs wisdom at the hypothetical “if you want to live” posed in “Journey:” “Took me so long to finally see / there’s a way to live that could set us free.” Though the song runs just over five minutes, the lyrics conclude around 2:15, where the “without you” space commences. The absence left by the vocals allows the energetic groove to move into the foreground and set the stage for expressive guitar and keys solos that bring the track home.
14. Waiting
An album this good needs a good closer, and fortunately for all of us, “Waiting” does not disappoint. This is a tender one that plays like an ode to moving on. The woodwinds come in as a surprise, almost as if Evan had saved this element up his sleeve, only to be revealed on the final track. The song is full, with complex emotions expressed in lines like “‘when I picture your face / it’s like staring into the void” and “I’m not free, not me, not yet, oh no, not until I let go”. Near the very end, there’s an intentional choice of a slight pause before the last note, like a moment of waiting. Then, rather deceptively, this “last” note is followed by one more final note that sounds, instead, like a new beginning.
In sum, Evan Sky & the Clouds is the product of two years’ hard hard work and the contributions of over a dozen people, according to Evan Sky’s Facebook post about the record. It is a well-organized album made of cleverly written songs, each with an identity and feel of their own. All of the parts come together to create an organic whole, which is, in this author’s opinion, the mark of a proper album.
Evan Sky & the Clouds was released on January 10, 2025.