Greg MacPherson presents his songs on Night Flares as intimate communications. Percussion is relatively spare while clean guitars and confessional singing are placed right up front in the mix. In this minimally-produced vein, MacPherson creates an attractive strain of indie; one part singer-songwriter and one part mainstream rock.

Some songs, like the “The Show is in the Basement,” evince a strongly dramatic flair, with a yawping vocal chorus and distorted guitar solos. “Kingston,” on the other hand, flies along breezily, its patter singing buoyed by a funky bass line. MacPherson’s voice has a rough lyricism that is quite appealing; on “Two Haircuts in One” and “Cutting Room” its timbre resembles the R&B shout of Van Morrison. More extended tracks, like “Blind Date” and “California,” possess strong hooks and equally adept “storytelling” lyrics, but might have been better still with greater variety in their respective arrangements. Still, I prefer this stripped down setting to the overproduction so rampant on many recent pop releases. The song is, after all, what matters most, and MacPherson’s songs are often quite compelling. - Christian Carey