That One Song (Fantasy Ranch)

Despite the title, this folk-rockin’ EP brings us five new tunes from Jeremy Allingham, a Vancouver singer-songwriter with a knack for lightly Celtic-flavoured sing-alongs.

Allingham, who’s sometime frontman for local indie bands, wrote all the tunes and coproduced with Jesse Gander. Their big, drum-heavy sound is on the dated side, and the sparer, acoustic guitar-based numbers prove more convincing vehicles for his thoughtful lyrics. Particularly effective is “On the Radio”, the tale of a boy, isolated near the Crowsnest Highway, who listens to the CBC for company. That (one) song’s relaxed pace also brings out the mellower textures in Allingham’s voice, which sometimes strains for stadium effect on the up-tempo stuff about hockey and love—as during the opening “In Your Eyes”, which never quotes Peter Gabriel but does have a size-large choral backing.

The singer comes up with catchy melodies, but his strength is in the intimate stuff, like “My Old Man”, which helps explain That One Song as the kind of bedside closeness that keeps a family together. (Allingham says his dad used to sing John Denver tunes at night.) The attempt to finish the number with a literally last-minute anthem, complete with power chords, unexpectedly dispels the sweetness of the moment.

Jeremy Allingham will perform at a CD-release party at the Biltmore Cabaret on April 26.