MAY 2008 ONLINE EDITORIALS

Branden Sipes – Contemplation

album cover

By Chris Galis

Branden Sipes, a former CSU student, has released his debut EP Contemplation. It is comprised of six gentle, acoustic songs, sung in an eager hum about relationships, relationships, relationships, and relationships. With minor accompaniment from a rhythm section, this release relies entirely on Sipes’ guitar-­playing and his lyrics.
Overall, The EP sounds good sonically – the guitar pops with clarity while the vocals retain a mellow longing throughout, but, despite its auditory attributes, Contemplation, toils with a formula-worn thin by the thousands of other singer/songwriter heart-throbs out there. The six songs on the EP tend to run together in a mess of glassy ornamentation and mute-slaps on the guitar. The first track “I Don’t Know” is a confused Sipes: “The seasons trade places, should we roll with the changes or try to keep ourselves the same…I don’t know.” The refrain of “I don’t know” builds in a soaring vocal that you’d swear you’ve heard somewhere before.
On the third track, “Wonder”, Sipes hits the listener with a little surprise. For a song that brandishes lyrics like: “I wonder if my heart beats a little slower than it should…I wonder if my skin is a little thicker than it should be”, the bridge descends into a deep, power chordesque moment of intellectual punk, where Sipes’ vocals are heavily layered with reverb and echo. The moment seems oddly out of place in this dainty little love song, but it is hard evidence of Sipes’ knack for creativity.
The last song, “Rescue Me”, is a slow melodic rendition of folk tradition. It is perhaps the most relevant track, with haunting string orchestration and solemn piano backing up Sipes as he inquires whether he would be rescued were he to “fall down, face first into the ground.” This relevance comes from the fact that this – considering the brevity of his debut – is Sipes displaying his uniqueness.
For a first release, Contemplation shows Sipes has talent – he can sing, he can pick the guitar, and he has­ some inspiring moments. But ultimately the EP is awash in writing that takes what could be good material and stifles it. The rhymes are predictable and the subject matter is all fluff – so fluffy and predictable that it is hard for the listener not to call out the rhymes before he makes them. This is certainly one for the ladies.