Sam Burton’s Fairweather Friend proves that an old trick done well is better than ten new ones

The templates and aesthetic he draws from on his third album are about as old as the concept of popular music itself, channelling the canyons around Los Angeles, top pickers in 1960s Nashville studios, and smoke-filled Greenwich Village folk clubs. Assisted on some tracks by co-producer Jonathan Wilson, who knows a thing or two himself about reviving the glory days of West Coast swoon, the LA-based Palestinian–American musician reaches for new levels of emotional resonance with an authority that instantly shuts down claims of derivative recycling. Granted, we’ve been here before: Burton’s deceptively simple songs are ultimately folk songs, occasionally tinged with country, at times channelled through classic rock and American roots music. The warm and homely arrangements never push Burton’s richly resonant, melancholy voice and rippling acoustic guitar out of the driver’s seat. There are hints of Bob Dylan’s New Morning, early albums by Gordon Lightfoot, and perhaps Neil Young’s Comes A Time as well, especially once the wail of pedal steel enters the frame. During the startlingly assured solo acoustic lament "Lilac Man", echoes of past masters of wounded but unbowed nocturnal intro...