Greg MacPherson – Mr. Invitation

Singer/songwriter Greg MacPherson is first and foremost a product of the prairies.  Based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, he plays a familiar brand of narrative driven acoustic indie-folk that fans of contemporaries like Luke Doucet and Justin Routledge should find quite comforting.  In fact, based on his latest outing, Mr. Invitation, why MacPherson hasn’t signed with Six Shooter Records over the course of his four-record career is rather baffling.

At his core MacPherson is an independent minded musician with a deep-rooted love for storytelling.  The album opens by slipping in a tale about a Canadian prairie boy gone traveling vagrant with the track “First Class.”  His journey starts at a European train station along the Rhine, with a shameless protagonist making his way to the passenger quarters of “liberal minded ladies.”  He admits to having “spun out of control” as he struggles to maintain self-respect and the illusion of moral decency and good intensions.  MacPherson’s accompanying band builds the conflicted journey by offering two parallel guitar patterns playing divergently.  It’s a fairly unique sound for the folk scene, but plays out reasonably well.

From a storytelling perspective the rest of the album gets the job done, but never indulges in the same level of narration as the first  – even if smart passages are found.  For instance, during a moment of poetic spoken word on “Smoke Ring” he communicates the conceptual imagery of a “month long pendulum swing” when speaking of finding purpose and realizing aspirations.  But, the passage stands more as an elegantly written phrase than as a narrative building block.  Still, MacPherson has a way with words that ensures listeners will never zone out.

However, if his words keep listeners close, then it’s the slow moving pace of songs like “Travelling Style” and “West End” that risk losing less attentive listeners.   When MacPherson slows to a crawl he does so with a sluggish rural casualness far removed from any of the urgent hooks that otherwise define his commanding charisma.  These moments are not enough to ruin the album, but they certainly fracture and segment its flow.

Mr. Invitation is a solid piece of prairie-coated indie.  Admittedly, the album comes somewhat front-loaded, although MacPherson’s strongest attempt at writing a pressing, slow song ends the album in “Visitor.”  There isn’t “filler” per se, but some tracks definitely leave less of an impact than others.  Still, fans of substance rich singer/songwriters should get a lot out of Mr. Invitation, and find plenty of ear-pleasing one-liners to boot.