BY REV ADAM MCKINNEY

Once again Evan Purcell proves worthy of his former title as Best Tacoma singer- songwriter. He won the Weekly Volcano’s People’s Choice Award for Best Singer- Songwriter in 2009 and Best Guitarist  in 2010. At the time, the Tacoma music scene was in a boom period for full bands, riding high on a general sense of indie rock being the predominant sound. We were eating good, with Paris Spleen, The Nightgowns, Basemint, and more filling out the Tacoma band scene.

Still, the singer-songwriter community had continued, unabated, with Kim Archer, Vicci Martinez, and Evan Purcell becoming fixtures, finding their audiences and building them out to something more. Nowadays, the indie singer-songwriter crowd has become its own ecosystem, finding and crafting talent that might otherwise die on the vine in another setting.

When it came to the “one man, one guitar” motif, Purcell never possessed the most acrobatic of voices, nor the most pyrotechnic guitar. As time has worn that voice down a little bit more, it’s only grown to better reflect his world- weary take on life. Now, weathered as it is, you can picture Purcell as a man possessed, playing his thoughts on the street for anyone who might listen, his guitar continuing to act as a delicate accompaniment to the conveyance of his lyrics.

Purcell doesn’t release that many records, unlike some of his prolific contemporaries. So, it’s a joy to receive The Big Hello, his first solo album since 2006’s Attachments. Whereas Attachments feels like Purcell channeling Billy Bragg or anticipating The Tallest Man on Earth, The Big Hello finds Purcell wandering lonely pathways the only way he knows how.

The gently Tom Petty-indebted “The Hundred-Year-Old Marathon Runner” moves with a melancholy energy, soft drums and swooning keys keeping the song moving onward. The title track and “Old Moon” serve as a perfect one-two punch, finding the beating heart of the album. “The Big Hello” is the kind of barroom ditty that will get even the most reluctant toes tapping. “Old Moon,” slowly building and swooning along the way, is packed with the kind of lyrics that have kept audiences attentive to Purcell’s music this whole time: highlighting the ways in which life raises one up, and when it hurts.

“I Remember Rain” is, perhaps, the most affecting of the tracks, as it deals with Purcell talking to someone, trying to remember their history together, but only able to come up with vague snatches of images. All through this conversation, he’s desperately trying to find specific memories that they might have together. Eventually, Purcell ends the song with this sentiment:

“This may sound petty, but I wonder if you know

Is the sum of this life, equal to it whole?”

For all of the ways in which Evan Purcell finds to convey himself in a musical manner – country ditties to lonesome folk to winsome indie rock – he always returns to, and relies on, the strength of his songwriting. When you’re able to carve out a space in a packed local music scene, using only your voice and guitar, you’ve got something special happening.

The Big Hello is an incredibly fun reminder of a great talent that we’re lucky to have waiting around in the Tacoma music scene, just waiting to release something like this.

The Big Hello can be purchased at https://evanpurcell.bandcamp.com/album/the-big-hello-3 You can follow Evan Purcell at https://www.facebook.com/efpurcell/