Nick Justice - The Road Not Taken (click on image to watch video)

 2 December 2019

California-based singer-songwriter Nick Justice builds off the momentum of the critically acclaimed album The Dance at Dawn with another acoustic-driven set of songs, The Road Not Taken. 

This time around, the former cowpunk and blues picker with a clear affinity for Bob Dylan kicks things off with a couple of unsettling tales. “Take Me Home” captures the final thoughts of a man one step from the county coroner’s office. Its eerier follow-up “Judgment Day” can be best described as Southern California Gothic. Both songs update the classic disaster songs and murder ballads at the very roots of American music.

For chills over something other than fear of God, get lost in “Song for Caity (A Daughter’s Song).” You don’t have to know what it feels like to be a loving father to appreciate the emotions Justice poured into the album’s most gorgeous and best-written song. For more raw fervor, check out the harrowing yet hopeful “Calling All Lost Souls.”

The rest of the album takes listeners down proverbial roads not taken—or only taken over the years by skilled folk songwriters. These trips down memory lane range from gentle strolls (“Down Country,” “The Winds of Change,” the title track) to brisk rides through the countryside (“Slipping Away,” “Left No Reply”). With difference paces and accompaniment, Justice introduces us to characters at specific places and moments in time.

In all, The Road Not Taken takes listeners quite a few places, from a childhood trip to Grandma’s house to that last ride to the graveyard.

Bobby Moore

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