PRYOR BAIRD

                                                              "Chasin' Shadows" 

                                                               Black River Entertainment

Pryor Baird may just be getting his biggest push right now and starting to fall into overnight sensation categories, but he certainly isn’t a stranger to music lovers. He’s the embodiment of the notion that Nashville is a 10-year town.

With a turn on the The Voice, time spent as one half of the duo Pryor & Lee, and plenty of hard work and determination toward discovering his place in a crowded country music scene, he ignited a buzz earlier this year with his soulfully fueled love profession, “You Are To Me.”

He now follows up that first release as a solo artist with “Chasin’ Shadows.”

The song, co-written by Baird with Jason Gantt and Scott Stepakoff, continues to stay strong in his irresistibly soulful country style as he weaves us through the seemingly impossible task of moving on after heartbreak.

The softness embedded into the instrumentation through the mid-tempo, Motown flare is the perfect accent to the vulnerability of his voice as he begins to take us down the haunted path of her memory that still lingers around, lamenting in the opening verse that while he’s taken down all their pictures, her smile shows up in his dreams, when he walks down the hall, etc. 

Digging deeper into the ways that she’s still haunting him, the second verse sees him continuing to feel her presence as he confesses, “I taste your kiss, I feel your touch,” while he goes round in round in circles battling the memories of what used to be.

Though the bridge sees him expertly using his voice in such a skillful way that you can literally feel his pain as he pounds his head against the wall, the rawness on the edges of his crying out to punch the chorus adds tremendous depth as it grabs hard to his emotional truths of feeling stuck as his heart bends and cracks, giving transparent frustration to his not being able to figure out how to get rid of her:

“I’m chasing shadows on the wall

It’s like this house is haunted

Can’t wrap my arms around it

Can’t put my finger on it

They say out of sight, out of mind

Since you left, I’m going out of mine

No matter if the lights are on or off

I’m chasing shadows on the wall”

There’s a lot of new music pouring out of the country genre right now, but to be able to find a unique touch within a signature characteristic that makes you walk a different, more intriguing line, seems to be a space reserved only for Pryor Baird. His blending of sonic styles into one soulful fusion of relatable lyrics, addictive melodies, and an amazingly smooth vocals, makes him one that you absolutely need to keep watch on if “You Are To Me” and “Chasin’ Shadows” are only the first indications of what’s still to come.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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