Ian Fisher‘s got a way with words only a traveled man can grasp. What began for him in Missouri, USA has carried him all the way to Berlin in search of songs, and there’s humor, humility, and a sense of gravitas to watermark his latest album as official symbols of his wandering. In the album opener “Nero,“ Fisher reflects on a relationship lost with all the tyranny and dissonance of the same emperor who “fiddled while Rome burned,” singing “If I was king of this town I’d burn it down,” and “If I were king of this town I’d run you around.” He’s not absent of sentimentality, though. On the next track Fisher opens with spoken word, an anecdote his grandpa used about opinions: “Opinions are like guns, just ’cause you have one doesn’t mean you gotta shoot it.” He lays into a finger-picked track over steel guitar with a nasally sneer about firing off his own opinions, called “Too Bad.”
In the press release it’s noted that Fisher’s Nero is “shaped by a tasteful, no-frills German production approach,” and bless the Germans for that. The backing instrumentation serves only to accent Fisher’s wry observational lyrics with light drumming and wailing steel licks. He cuts loose strumming on “Constant Vacation” about a life on the lam from the responsibility of relationships, and all the burdens dodging them entails. READ MORE…