Ramin Karimloo completes his The Road to Find Out… EP series with a slightly underwhelming West
“It’s hard to get by just upon a smile”
Whether it was planned this way or not, Ramin Karimloo managed to stretch his The Road To Find Out… EP series for nearly a decade, releasing East back in 2014, followed by South, North and finally West last year. On each, he has explored his unique style of Broadgrass, marrying his passions for musical theatre and country music, mixing original material with standards from pop, country and of course, the stage.
For West, I couldn’t help but feel that the inspiration was beginning to run out just a little, with a track selection that is safer than any of the collections preceding it. Things start off brightly with a Yusuf Islam, Cat Stevens as was, mash-up of two songs from his Tea for the Tillerman album – ‘The Road to Find Out’ (providing the title track inspiration for the EP project of course) and ‘Wild World’, slotting together beautifully.
But even with Karimloo’s hugely expressive voice and unique musical style here, I’m not sure the world is in great need of more covers of the likes of Mary Poppins‘ ‘Feed The Birds’ and Les Mis‘ ‘Bring Him Home’, no matter how much the songs may mean to him. Even the delicate beauty of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang‘s ‘Hushabye Mountain’ is kinda overplayed, though the spectral harmony work here just about makes the case for its inclusion.
The gentle strummed guitar strings of the sole self-penned number of ‘Solitude’ feels like more of an expression of artistic intent, almost spiritual-like in its climax. But as we turn to country standard ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ to finish off, it just doesn’t feel as uniquely inspired a choice as it could be to wind up this impressive collection of EPs. There’s nothing wrong with it musically, as with West as a whole, it is just that for me, the bar had been raised higher on the other points of the compass.
