Review: Daniel Rossen's You Belong There

With a strange, ominous harmonic progression and improvisatory guitar, Daniel Rossen's You Belong There opens with what will be the primary material for most of the album: a grim perspective of the nothingness that comprises most of adulthood and a deep nostalgia that lingers in Rossen's solitary life. The content is what most critics drool over, but does the music truly measure up to the heart-wrenching lyrical content? Austere and eloquent musicianship is definitely present, but it sounds overly busy and stretches beyond the musical stars into a rather dull universe of ornamentation. The music comes across as too smart to be genuine. But enough of the ranting, what all is living in You Belong There?

"It's a Passage" has already been described (at least the first half). After eerie harmonies and what seems to be guitar improvisation comes a steady rhythm on the guitar soon followed by drums that establish a solid pace. "Forsaken land, you kept me when I couldn't face the world." This line sums up about 50 to 80 percent of the lonely lyrical content on the album and it is definitely what makes most of the album interesting. “Shadow in the Frame,” without a doubt the strongest song on the album, starts out with a walking bass line motive that is used hauntingly in the tenor range for most of the song. “My only person, a shadow in the frame.” A poignant line that highlights an empty frame of mind watching everything “flashing by.”

“You belong there” musically depicts the ghastly, shifting landscape that Rossen views where an overarching theme of acceptance of one’s inevitable time and place are manifested in his words “You belong there. And I here.” The statement is simple but nonetheless potent as he’s “Moving back and forth. Through the air around.” “Unpeopled Space” is a tour de force of electric textures and strong, driving rhythms ultimately propelling the sonic environment to a sole piano and guitar ending the proclamation that “Nothing’s lost, when there’s nothing.”

The tracks already mentioned comprise enough fluff on the dismal experience of nothingness coupled with the existential despair that is You Belong There. It is lyrically beautiful but musically unexceptional. There is a beautiful depiction of nostalgia in “Keeper and Kin.” “Hey, young face. You’ve changed.” And concluding the album nearly the same way it opened, “Repeat the Pattern” is a dull declaration of what was already stated. The last half isn’t as strong as the first primarily for musical reasons. Trying everything to prove nothing, the music is so heavy with word painting and embellishments that it loses sense of actually being music. The lyrics are poetically triumphant despite the lackluster sounds that try to accompany them. Overall, You Belong There is mostly trite, occasionally perfect. There’s nothing else to say concerning Daniel Rossen’s sermon of nothingness.