Positively Jaded is an apt title for the album from A.J.H Gillis & the Delusions of Grandeur – the namesake of which has some decidedly mixed feelings about living a rootless existence.
Recorded between Montreal and Halifax, the album features collaborations from Canadian artists like Tom Rich, Terra Spencer, and Nathan Wiley, to name a few. Gillis takes a large focus on locations, on the beauty of his surroundings and places that inspire him. This inspiration comes in many forms – awe, sadness – but always sung with that same veneration.
“Back to Montreal” opens the album with a sense of melancholy reflection that proves to be a common theme as the album progresses. Gillis recalls his past and wonders if he were to return if things could ever truly be the same. This suggestion that Gillis has seen a lot – that he’s a drifter – is returned to time and time again. He delivers tales of his travels and experiences in that signature Americana style of his, often leaning fully into his bluesy country influences.
In fact, his clear love for classic country even inspires one of the more lyrically charming tracks. “If Dolly Had a Daughter” is a love letter to the “Queen of Country” herself. Gillis’s daydreams are given an extra hint of life with Terra Spencer’s sweet harmonies in the chorus. These country roots return in “Daddy Shoulda Been a Cowboy”, a song that only furthers a self-created image of a lonely song-slinger forever on the move.
Despite Gillis’s penchant for singing of life on the road, he does take moments to pay special attention to places that draw him in again and again. Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island is just such a place, as he has two songs penned in dedication for the city. In “Charlottetown Again”, a collaboration with Summerside artist Nathan Wiley, Gillis ponders why he’s drawn to the city.
“I’m not sure why, I’ve got no ties to here but then again,” sings Gillis. “Maybe that’s why I emerge here in the end. Maybe that’s why it keeps dripping from my pen.”
It’s this clear love for the beauty of Canada that ties this album to all of Gillis’s previous work. No matter what lyrical themes he ends up sinking his teeth into, the world in which his songs live is always made very obvious. Even here, where Gillis drifts into more jaded and troubled territory, the saving grace almost always seems to be in the beauty of all his favourite places.