Still You Sharpen Your Teeth paints Alexander Biggs in the tradition of modern American folk music, with a voice filled with personality and songs brimming with emotion. The instrumentation and production style doesn’t differ greatly across these six tracks, which isn’t necessarily a criticism, although at times it feels as if the heavy use of reverb and double-tracked vocal smoothes the edges a touch too much, resulting in a calmer overall sound than the lyrics suggest.
The tracks utilise lightly strummed or plucked acoustic guitar parts with a minimal amount of percussion, often a kick drum maintaining a pulse, snare brushes and cymbal washes, while reverberant electric guitar and keyboard parts add extra weight in certain sections.
Closer Gone Again stands out from the pack. Its production seems more thought out than the rest, the addition of backing vocals and piano helping to add emotional weight that works in the song’s favour.
Overall this EP shows promise for a young songwriter who has already attracted a certain amount of attention so early in his career. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for where he goes from here.
