Music Review: Allen Dobb, ‘Alone Together’
The veteran singer-songwriter’s evocative new album uses rugged British Columbia as a backdrop for appreciating the beauty (and shortness) of life.
Allen Dobb’s Alone Together album artwork.
After taking nearly a decade off from releasing music, Canadian singer-songwriter Allen Dobb is back with Alone Together, a 10-track album released in February 2024. He and his brother (and longtime collaborator) Cameron produced the album during the pandemic. Between the two of them, they played all of the 20-plus instruments heard on the album.
Dobb was inspired in part by his experience working as a range management specialist in a mountainous region of British Columbia, Canada, and the result is uniquely beautiful. Dobb’s mature and emotive vocals, supported by spacious acoustic arrangements, accentuate the wisdom reflected in his lyrics.
The album kicks off with “All Costs,” a heartfelt story of a couple who’ve grown older together, but not closer. The first song Dobb had written in some time, it spurred the creation of Alone Together. Inspired by the challenges of rural ranch life, he expertly weaves together imagery drawn from his recovery work after wildfires in 2017 with lyrics comparing fate to a river flowing downhill.
The third song, “Trapeze,” is not only my favorite on the album but one of my favorites so far this year. This ode to togetherness, perseverance and leaning on companions as we take leaps of faith throughout life uses the trapeze as a metaphor about motion and achieving a delicate balance between reluctance and conquest.
The acoustic instrumentation accompanying Dobb’s sincere vocals build from a simple guitar and kick drum to include bass guitar, piano, strings and background vocals, which all melt away for a clear landing on “the final arc and release,” followed by “I’m there to catch you on life’s trapeze.” The way it all comes together at the end of the chorus is deeply satisfying.
The title track “Alone Together,” inspired by a relaxing evening spent at home, is both reflective and prospective. Somewhere between carefree and melancholy, this song is a great depiction of Dobb’s golden years in British Columbia. Dobb provides another rumination on how unexpectedly short life can seem in “Daylight Is Burning,” a term his family used when he was young as a reminder to work hard to get what you can out of the day:
Daylight is burning
Moments that you thought you had
And the morning is broken
All the things that you wish you’d said
Allen Dobb. Photo courtesy of the artist.
The final song, “Bluebird,” became Dobb’s mother’s favorite—as a child, she loved the bluebirds that came to her farm—and he sang it to her several times in her final year of life. The gorgeous opening lines could only come from someone who’s spent a long time in the tough western terrain:
I could cradle you like the canyon holds a river warm and tight
And the snow wicking on the hillside, water welling up in your eyes
Dobb paints a scene of the warm beauty of spring, with the refrain’s visual of “the bluebirds in the morning, how they sparkle when they fly” providing a levity that counterbalances the deeper, more reflective lyrics elsewhere in the verses.
Captivating from start to finish, Alone Together is more than simply a great acoustic album. It’s a soundtrack to a full life, and a reminder not to overlook the simple beauty in the world around us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacson Miller. Photo courtesy of the author.
Jacson Miller is a huge fan of great Americana music and the songwriters who create it. He is a passionate supporter of equity in education and youth development as a Board Member of the nonprofit ‘Search Institute’. A long-time resident of Minneapolis, he grew up in southern Indiana, has a Business degree from Purdue University, an MBA from Duke University, and loves being a dad, playing guitar, and songwriting.
