CCMusic.com

• Track Listing

Over the course of four years, James Jackson Toth and long-time collaborator Jarvis Taveniere paired newly written songs with ones drawn from decades ago and brought together musicians from across the various eras of his time recording as Wooden Wand-in the end creating an accidental self-imposed This Is Your Life. "I was bringing people together from my history and writing songs that reckon with my past." The resulting album, James & the Giants picks at the seams of the memories borne of that experience and finds new footing in reframing memory.

Whether reassessing his origin story as a child on Staten Island during "Islander" or detailing the complex and nuanced nature of even the closest relationships on the horn-laden "Friends Forever", James & the Giants trades in the imagery and sounds of Americana, but subtly and thoughtfully tilts the frame until a new, mature perspective emerges. Nothing is as simple as it seems, he seems to say, but the complications are part of the beauty.

A1. I Wanna Go Down To The Basement

A2. Hall Of Mirrors

A3. Don't Let Love Make A Liar Out Of You

A4. Dead of Night

A5. All Time Girl

B1. Dilated Eyes

B2. On The Vine

B3. Friends Forever

B4. Islander

B5. Bless This Mess