Peasant - On the Ground

Genre indie-rock Publisher Paper Garden External Links Peasant MySpace

Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Population 8,227. Sounds like the quiet and unassuming kind of place where things flow by at a little slower pace and life can be excruciatingly dull for those dreaming of bigger and better things. Apparently that pining for a more meaningful existence was the case for Damien DeRose, a Doylestown native who records under his musical alias, Peasant, and speaks of "finding comfort and satisfaction in the mostly dismal environment" he grew up in. It's a suitably quiet and unassuming nom de plume for a musician coming from such humble roots and recording honest, lived-in songs that sound as if they were freshly plucked from the Pennsylvania soil.

The history of the sensitive boy with a guitar and heart on sleeve is one as old as the history of music itself, so it takes a rare talent to rise above the glut of singer-songwriters cooing their "woe is me" tales in coffee shops and clubs across the country. Paul Simon was one such singer, Elliott Smith another. DeRose may not quite be on the level of that pair, but he draws inspiration from both and packs his album On the Ground full of songs that strive for the kind of emotional honesty and warmth that they have poured into their impressive discographies.

Smith is the most obvious comparison and influence on DeRose's music, most tellingly when he employs the double-tracked vocal technique on songs like "Fine is Fine" and "Exposure". It's a simple trick, but the warmth and texture it adds keeps these songs from growing as stale as they would in other, less talented hands. But the neatest trick in DeRose's arsenal is his delivery, striving for an emotional honesty that relies more on simple beauty than the pained, overwrought emoting that sinks so many other vocalists (see one Chris Carrabba). When he sings "you make me feel real again / and I'll do the best that I can", as he does on "Exposure", you really believe the guy.

The album does begin to lose a little steam towards the end as these quiet, acoustic numbers start to pile up on one another, but there are a few songs that point to bigger and better things ahead for Peasant. Most interestingly is the biggest sonic divergence from the rest of the album, "We're Good", which fleshes things out with a full band and finds DeRose sounding a little like Jeff Lynne on a long-lost ELO demo. It proves that once he gets tired of his acoustic guitar and quiet confessionals, we may find him plugging in and pouring out the kind of upbeat pop that would make Nick Lowe and A.C. Newman proud. As he continues to grow as a songwriter and gains more confidence in his own natural talents, more people will be hearing the name Peasant and we may be thanking Doylestown for such a motivating environment.