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CD Now - August 1999
The Traveler’s Code—sometimes called the hobo’s code—to which singer-songwriter Darryl Purpose refers is the Depression-era assortment of simple pictograms left for roadside wanderers, pointing to a place to eat, find a drink of water, or get a safe night’s rest. The title song uses that code as a metaphor for the guidance of love, and comes wrapped in warm choruses and harmonious vocals. In hearing such allusions to our great American mobility, it’s tempting to consider Darryl Purpose a present-day troubadour.
And perhaps he is, from such stellar tunes as the gently pulsing “Mr. Schwinn,” a memory told with a semi-repetitive, incantatory intensity that crystallizes in a hushed, poignant chorus. Purpose offers a fine romantic cure for Y2K fear with “Last Great Kiss Of The 20th Century,” a millennium-eve love story-song set to a memorably bracing, Latin-tinged melody.
The romance deepens on “Ring On My Hand,” a sweet waltz celebrating matrimonial bonds, with Lucy Kaplansky singing lead and harmony parts. Other graceful gems include the unadorned, emotive “True As A River” and the well-etched, bittersweet reminiscence of “For The Story,” sung in Purpose’s somewhat James Taylor-ish tones.
Yet perhaps behind his folkie exterior, another Purpose lurks. His “Child of Hearts” is a surging, Springsteen-ian folk-rocker that lays out a stirring roadmap of parent-child challenges and expectations. His “Annieland” bursts with winning hooks; “Smoke and Mirrors” rides an irresistible blues-rock groove; and “The Circle” sets a bracing pace, adorned with satisfying nervy guitar and violin fills.
Whether expressing himself through his folkier or rockier songs, Darryl Purpose has clearly built everything up to Code.
—Drew Wheeler www.cdnow.com |
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