Elessar Thiessen
A Rainy Week in Paradise
(self-released)

Elessar Thiessen’s A Rainy Week in Paradise opens with a slow, singular Thiessen vocal and his electric strumming of “Another Love Song” and we are through the single strumming and warble before we know it, into “I Need a Woman” with a snapping and distorted organ leading into a nice soft beat. Here Thiessen’s personality vocals come to the fore in a swingy, sweet love song. “You Girl” plots even slower, with a neat Cameron Friesen laidback beat, Jordan Jackiew’s subtle organ and Alexa Dirks helping along Thiessen’s best vocals here. Another breathy vocal, this time aided obviously with auto-tune, floats over a slowly strummed guitar on “Without Him” roiling quickly into a 50’s-like heavy torch ballad, one of the more interesting songs here. I really like this send-up of over-driven organ and quieter verses into over-the-top choruses. “Truth” shows off some more Thieseen electric guitar dexterity with a nice MOR flicking rhythm and the players who are not Thiessen filling in, setting up a nice, rich layer behind the man. The jumpy vocals here feed with the light flicks on his guitar for a good upbeat tune. “Sister” is a deep, guitar slow mover, with very pretty plucky moments, again showing Thieseen’s higher range control in a very sweet song of evocative images. The mid-tempo shunk beat of “The Perfect Bloom” ends with some really sweet moments of simple, effective guitar noodling as well as perfect piano placement.