Album a Day: Jason Webley - The Cost of Living

Jason Webley is charming and passionate and those are two themes that I think come across in his music and on this fifth album by one of the mosters of accordian. This is an up and down great album where Webley really shows off his talents. What I find particulary interesting about this album (and perhaps his music in general) is that he's able to touch on these slightly different stylistic modes while retaining his own general sound. Some of this can be attributed to the music being an amalgamation of styles including gypsy, folk, shanty, etc. that is in the same realm but often has different approaches (and instruments can vary as well). Webley's background in punk should also be taken in to account as giving a distinct feel to what he does (in addition to just Jason Webley being Jason Webley). The Cost of Living has beautiful artwork (both on the cover and inside of the digipak (and I love digipaks), great flow, quality production and overall is fantastic (and I recommend seeing Jason Webley in concert if you can). Favorite Tracks: Ways To Love, Almost Time To Go, Disappear, Raise Them Higher, and There's Not a Step We Can Take That Does Not Bring Us Closer