Reviews
Performing Songwriter, June 2005
Souvenirs & Photographs is an album that has it all: great lyrics, strong musicianship and expert arrangements and production. Cresswell’s versatile voice goes from warm and intimate to soaring and powerful without missing a beat.
Indie-music.com
Scott Cresswell has had several brushes with fame: recording the audiobook version of President Clinton's book "My Life," mixing music by Carlos Santana, working on Christopher Reeve's spoken word album, even getting U2's mixing engineer, Kevin Killen, to mix a few of his own songs. Now it looks like fame is brushing back. Cresswell's debut CD, Souvenirs & Photographs, has had tracks featured on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" as well as HBO.
The reason for the attention is obvious from the first track. Fans of the focused singer/songwriter genre (Jude Cole, Richard Marx, Michael Penn) will fall instantly in love with Cresswell. He does the quiet verse/rising chorus thing brilliantly, with the occasional gorgeous high note on a minor chord that suddenly opens the whole vibe to the spiritual realm. These are swirling, living, breathing songs. The theme holding them together is the search for something earnest and real in a world that's anything but. From "Wide Awake and Dreaming":
I don't want to be a homeless man in the wreck of a Cadillac,
I don't need to be the king of a world made of money, sex, and heart attacks ...
I like the jangly "Let Me Go" for the way the racing tempo matches the lyrics about not being able to slow life down. "Suffer" has a groove with a slight hint of jazz. An incredible amount of detail goes into each song, both in the music and in the vocal arrangments, but when you stop analyzing and just sit back to enjoy, it all flows so effortlessly.
Radio playlists desperately need these songs. Cresswell is pop without the posing, earnestness without the angst-ridden rock pretty-boy preening. In fact, if there is any justice at all, he'll will breeze right past radio and go right to film soundtracks and soldout tours.