EP Review of Ian Jones: The Evergreens

Ian Jones‘ emotionally expressive, mostly-crisp, broad-ranging voice is the heart of his Americana style, one that’s earnest and heartfelt, while being light and hopeful.

The Evergreens is a disc with a cohesive song collection that provides a great beginning-to-end listen while still producing a couple of potential crossover hit singles.

The EP-opening title track, “Evergreens,” is a softly pleasant place-setter that paints a vivid picture of a landscape of, well, evergreens.

Things turn quickly to a slightly darker tone on “Born Again Sinner,” a lyrically introspective yet outwardly hopeful song that’s augmented with one of those haunting guitar lines that I way-too-frequently compare to Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” This one’s not full-on “Wicked Game,” but it’s in the same zip code. Regardless, this is one of the songs you’ll remember long after your most recent spin of the disc, and it’s one of Ian’s songs with the potential to appeal to fans well beyond the Americana singer-songwriter genre.

Next up, “Liars, Criminals, Beggars, and Thieves” is a very folky storytelling-style song, one that’ll be a quick favorite of folky singer-songwriter fans. I would expect it to be an oft-requested number for Ian, particularly from his most ardent fans.

“Hallelujah” is an uplifting, hopeful track with a lilting guitar line that supports Ian’s earnest vocals, while “Promised Land” is a reminiscent love song with well-crafted lyrics (“The road’s long but it always feels right, like it does when you’re holding me tight”) and a twangy, dancehall-flavored production style.

Finally, the EP ends with the rollickingly memorable, energetically uptempo country ditty “Last Call.” A mainstream country audience would really dig this fun number. At the very least, I’d expect some country bars to use it as a night-ending, “I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here” kind of closing-the-bar number.

The two songs on this EP that stay with me for days are “Born Again Sinner” and “Last Call,” though a couple of the other songs rival them as favorites while I’m listening to the record. It’s only 6 songs long, but The Evergreens is an exceptionally solid, must-hear collection.

More Recently

Since the release of The Evergreens in October 2021, Ian has released a full-length album. Results Not Typical dropped in April 2023.

Looking Ahead

Check the “Tour” page of Ian’s website for upcoming live performances. He currently has three gigs listed for later this week: tomorrow (Thursday), September 7th at the Madison Avenue Pub in Everett, WA; Friday, September 8th at Whistlin’ Jack’s in Naches, WA; and Saturday, September 9th at Slim’s in Seattle, WA.