Chris DeLine

Gus Black, formerly the “Don’t Fear The Reaper” guy from Scream, as well as “that guy with that song” from shows like Alias, Smallville and One Tree Hill, performs a variety of smooth and upbeat pop-rock songs on his latest album Autumn Days. It’s hard for me to put together any more info on his influence on these shows as I haven’t really seen them. But, with such an association with such pop culture establishments, a few questions became apparent. Do Black’s songs make certain scenes more powerful? And on the flip side of that, do these mediums ultimately affect Black’s music. The answer to both seems to lead to yes.

Two of the tracks that I’m particular to are “Long Beach (It’s a Miracle)” and “Certain Kind of Light.” Both are distinct, yet oddly similar given my previous statements and the context of the remainder of Autumn Days. I mean that in the sense that I can see these songs being played at absolute crucial plot moments in something like The O.C. OK, bad example, haven’t seen The O.C., but from what I hear about the show, these songs seem like they could be played at absolute crucial plot moments in The O.C. I don’t mean that in a bad way at all, as I find both songs very smooth yet inclusive of guitar which explains the songs meaning in entirely different ways from one another. But with few exceptions, these two tracks are different from the rest of the album, which is considerably slower and sung in whispered harmonies. Both are done well, but with the long track list of the album, the non-made for TV sounding songs tend to drain on and lose emphasis.

[This post was first published by Culture Bully.]