Posted: by The Editor
His latest down-on-your-luck missive wrapped up in the smooth sounds of the 70s, Jimmy Montague’s “A Moment Like This” finds him both refining and expanding his soulful sound. The horn arrangements are precise and Montague (James Palko of Taking Meds, Pretty Rude, and Perspective, A Lovely Hand to Hold) calms things down for a tight hook between the more active verses and instrumental runs. As the song goes on, though, you can feel Palko making the most of the comfort he’s found the space carved out on Casual Use and filling that space with some more experimental and expansive ideas. A gritty guitar solo cuts under the slick horns on their second round, some disorienting background vocals haunt the subsequent verse, and a wild array of sounds swell into a uplifting crescendo before cutting off at the last moment, leaving the listener hanging on the verge along with the song’s narrator.
On “A Moment Like This,” Palko said: The song started out after a lot of listening to Trouble In Paradise, it has followed me from pacing around my apartment in queens, contemplating my place and if this is all there is, and the decision to uproot and move again just to shake out the dust. It’s been slated and put aside through two LPs now and finally finished after a lot of listening to At The Station, and wanting to put a new life into the song. Some of the brass playing has lived through many demos and half attempts, with saxophone by Matt Knoegel and Trombone by Ben Barnett both played in the summer of 2020 in Queens. Another look at the indecisiveness of “well I worked to get here, now I’m here, now what?”
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Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject
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