Rating: 4 ½ stars
Music is for the emotional and one should listen to songs that make them feel something. Berlin singer/multi-instrumentalist Dirk Homuth and New York lyricist Charlie Mason brings listeners Tomorrow’s Yesterday, a new album from Almost Charlie which showcases 11 songs – each produced from an uncommon long-distance songwriting duo who, to this day,   have not met face to face.
Almost Charlie was formed in mid 2003, when Homuth answered an internet ad of Mason’s asking for a composer. Over the next nine years the songwriting team has written three albums with a strict division of lyricist and composer that brings classic songwriting duos such as Burt Bacharach and Hal David to mind. When not creating Almost Charlie albums, Homuth and Mason moonlight by independently collaborating and co-writing with various artists across both sides of the ocean, landing hits that charted the Top 40 across Europe and on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Tomorrow’s Yesterdayhas the overall feel of a Beatle’s album which serves it well. In the opening track “Hope Less” for example, the lively McCartney-like piano and merry acoustic guitar that accompany the song serve as a nice contrast to the somewhat dark lyrics of the refrain, “They’ve decided to hope less, so the lows won’t be as low.” The album also has a good balance of slow songs, such as “Sandsong” and “Still Crazy ‘Bout You After all These Years” and upbeat songs like “Man Without a Home” and “A Nice Place to Die.”
The individual songs in the album spark a range of thoughts and emotions, from, “this is really catchy,” and “it makes me feel really good inside,” to “this song is way too long and it kind of depresses me.” That last one is the vibe given off by the final track “When Venus Surrenders.” At a little under eight minutes, it is the longest song on the album and is rather tedious to listen to unless one is in a patient or unhappy mood. The first ones could describe a number of the tracks however they most embody the 5th track, “A Nice Place to Die” which is actually a rather misleading song as one would think that it is going to be slow and unhappy but in reality it is really happy, upbeat and rather bluegrassy.
All things considered, Almost Charlie’s Tomorrow’s Yesterday is a lively rather upbeat album (in most places) with a Beatlesesque feel to it that will delight those who want a feel good song, or a feel bad song or just something to relax to.