Heartbreak is a form of renewable energy.
For , the doldrums of such malcontent has worked in his favor. Mining the depths of his own misery, Ritter has channeled the demons of lost love and created a harmonious retreat for himself as a sentimental songsmith.
At the front-end of Ritter’s tour at the on Wednesday night, the Moscow, Idaho-native displayed a public détente with his personal pain. Ritter opened the set with a solo acoustic rendition of “Idaho” from 2006’s, “The Animal Years.” He ended the song on his knees in front of his mic stand like he was giving an offering to the music gods. Joined by the Royal City Band on “Southern Pacifica,” “Harrisburg” and “Joy To You Baby,” Ritter then shifted into a swelling arrhythmia of hybrid folk-rock. Overall, itap tough to pin down Ritter’s sound and his influences. With tinges of Leonard Cohen on subtler songs, his style often morphs into the gruff wallow of Johnny Cash on tracks like “Folk Bloodbath.”
Ritter also has a Springsteen-like flair for the dramatic. During “In The Dark,” Ritter killed the house lights and PA and blanketed the venue with an eerie overcast as he wrenched-out the leathery vocals for added affect. The crowd was ignited by the histrionics. Later on, Ritter steered that momentum into a fiery duet of “Roll On” with Rachel Price (from opening-act Lake Street Drive). To close-out the set, Ritter then embalmed the evening with the afterglow of “Change Of Time.” The song was thick on schmaltzy overlays —- which some might see as a shortcoming in Ritter’s music. But even so, itap hard to find fault in something so brazenly organic.
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Kris K. Coe is a freelance writer, Denver-native, and regular contributor to Reverb.
Evan Semón is a Denver freelance writer and photographer and regular contributor to Reverb. See .
