Dave Arcari. Now there’s a man with fire in his belly and whisky in his blood as anyone who has seen his live performances can testify. Keeping it real would appear to be where he is at and his album “Still Friends” contains twelve stripped back songs that, whilst sometimes unexpectedly sentimental, still resonate with authenticity.
There is not much more here than one man and a guitar but that would indeed be true of many of Dave Arcari’s live performances but, in the containment offered by the studio environment, his combustible nature is tempered into something that is most certainly solid yet delivered with a degree of introspection that infuses songs familiar from his live sets such as “MacPherson’s Lament” and “Close To The Edge” with the kind of sweeping sadness that so many aspiring sensitive singer songwriters can only ever dream of.
No one would argue that Dave Arcari is the real deal. He does all that he does with the drive of a man on a mission and, even when in low key downbeat mode, he still deserves to be put on your musical barbecue and served up medium rare.
Available from Bandcamp on violet vinyl and from the usual digital places.