Details: Consisting of singer/guitarist Bodary, percussionist and musical director/arranger Dan Seibert, and keyboardist Jack Doran, Hello Emerson has been crafting subtle, earnest, and expansive songs since it's formation in 2015. Drawing on the midwestern songwriting tradition of acclaimed acts like Bright Eyes and The Mountain Goats, Bodary's erudite yet homespun lyrics are bolstered by the group's increasingly baroque arrangements. A collaborative act inspired by the local artistic community of their home base of Columbus, Ohio, their 2020 sophomore effort, How to Cook Everything featured contributions from 50 local musicians, creating an immersive and complex yet folky and accessible sound. Their latest effort, the forthcoming To Keep Him Here further develops and focuses their style, while applying it to a set of darker themes. A concept album, the record delves into the chaos and confusion that followed a serious accident suffered by Bodary's father which landed him in the ICU for nine days. Across the record, Bodary uses his measured yet honest lyrical voice to articulate and sort through the terror of the experience, and the strength which pulled him and his family through. Tracked live in his godfather's home, the band's physical proximity lends an added layer of intimacy to the tracks, all while maintaining Seibert's subtle yet sweeping arrangements. The result is the band's strongest effort yet; a record of hope and fear, To Keep Him Here finds beauty in the kind of compassion which can only arise from disorder.

Hello Emerson - To Keep Him Here (CD)