Music Review: Cole Allen, ‘The Other Side’
The veteran Minnesota blues rocker strips down his sound to tell a powerful, emotional story on his new acoustic EP.
Cole Allen. Photo courtesy of the artist.
We started the Adventures in Americana platform in early 2021, and we tend to stick to new music in our reviews. So pretty much everything we’ve reviewed could be considered a pandemic album. Sometimes certain themes strike me as something possibly born of this crisis, like restlessness, depression or isolation. Other times, a dramatic style change makes me wonder if the artist has taken the enforced solitude as a chance to re-evaluate, evolve, or just try something new for the hell of it.
I didn’t know much about Cole Allen’s music when I started listening to his EP, The Other Side—I tend to listen fresh when I’m introduced to new music—but I immediately started to wonder if this was a departure for the artist. A lone acoustic guitar, alternately strummed and picked, gives off a folky singer-songwriter feel. Then Allen starts singing, and his delivery isn’t what I’m expecting. There’s a hint of theatricality, an emotive quality that makes it seem like he’s more accustomed to projecting his vocals above a full plugged-in band.
I soon discovered why: For most of his career, since his debut release in 2012, Allen’s mostly been associated with hard-edged blues rock, singing and playing lead electric guitar for his own Cole Allen Band (as well as providing guitar for his wife Sena Ehrhardt’s band). So an entire EP of just him and his guitar is a pretty big evolution. With that big, rock-oriented voice, an acoustic guitar could easily be overwhelmed. But thanks to strong, crisp, even percussive fingerpicking, one instrument is all Allen needs to support his vocals.
The themes of the songs on this EP could very well be pandemic-born. But as I learned when I started to dig deeper, all of these songs were written pre-pandemic, and Allen had been contemplating a more acoustic direction for a while. It reminded me that while my thinking about music and songwriting has been colored by COVID, these kinds of life and musical transformations have always been possible even without a global health crisis.
Cole Allen. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Each track on the EP stands alone as a testament to overcoming struggles and finding light, but taken together, they tell a clear and cohesive story of Allen’s own sea change over the past few years.
The title track, “The Other Side,” speaks of a turbulent past still haunting him:
I’ve walked a rough and ragged road—this life just tends to lose control sometimes
My darkness hasn’t lost its greed, I feel it taking over me in time
I don’t know where else to turn, I’ve watched so many bridges burn
But each verse ends with a suggestion of hope for the future: “Maybe there’s love for me to find / I’ll take a chance on the other side.” A brisk tempo throughout gives “The Other Side” a feeling of momentum that supports its hopeful conclusion.
By contrast, “Black Cloud” has a slower rhythm and more sparse instrumentation, as Allen depicts the suffocating helplessness of depression and his desire to escape it: “I gotta find a way out / Get through this somehow without losing all of myself / This black cloud keeps hanging round and I gotta find a way out.”
Still, even in this slower, sadder song, there’s a glimmer of hope: “Dull colors and shades of blue, but still a light shines off in the distance / Tired eyes couldn’t hide the truth, they tell a story of resistance.” The last line of the chorus subtly changes at the end from “I gotta find a way out” to “gonna find a way.”
In the third track, “Chasing Down the Night,” we begin to see the change happen that Allen was hoping for in the first two songs: “Ashes of my regret fall slowly to the ground, no longer keeping me awake / Silence my guilt that used to scream so loud, there’s nothing left for you to take.”
Although, he notes, “These years have not been kind,” this song focuses on the promise of a new beginning: “Gonna leave this darkness behind … I see the light begin to change / storm clouds fade away / no more chasing down the night.”
Cole Allen. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Throughout the first few songs, I’d thought more than once that Allen’s acoustic departure from his muscular, showstopping electric guitar reminded me of Jason Isbell’s recent acoustic double single, which featured a demo version of “Maybe It’s Time” from the 2018 version of the movie A Star Is Born. It’s one of my favorite Isbell tracks ever and although I very much appreciate his electric riffs, I love it when he strips away everything but his voice and an acoustic guitar.
So I was delighted when, lo and behold, the next track on Allen’s EP was a beautiful, heartfelt cover of “Maybe It’s Time.” Although I think of this song as mainly being about embracing societal progress, it also speaks to the personal transformation needed, and so it dovetails nicely with Allen’s originals: “It takes a lot to change a man / Hell, it takes a lot to try / Maybe it's time to let the old ways die.”
The next two songs didn’t dispel my mental comparison of Allen to Isbell. The latter’s past life struggles are well documented, as is the fact that his wife and daughter play a big role in his salvation and determination to stay sober and take care of his mental health. So I couldn’t help but take “Always” and “Noelle” as nods to Allen’s wife and daughter helping him find his way through the darkness.
In “Always,” he references the struggles described in the previous songs as a testament to the strength of his relationship: “Honey I know life’s been cold, it’s easy to go astray / We both know it’s been a long and winding road, but we’re standing here today.” The lyrics are spare and simple, letting the guitar, bright and contemplative at the same time, carry the obvious emotional significance of the song.
The sixth and final track on the EP, “Noelle,” reminded me of Isbell’s two songs to his daughter, “Something to Love” and “Letting You Go.” I’m not gonna lie, this song brought a lump to my throat just like Isbell’s always do. There’s just something so human and resonant in the purpose a father can feel after the birth of a child—”Had a broken compass and you showed me the way / You opened your eyes and I found my place”—and the awe they experience at the power and confidence a baby girl can have:
Growing up fast, you keep a hurried pace
You’ve never been the kind to stand in place
You find what moves you so, and follow it as far as it goes
Wherever you may go, just know that I’ll be waiting for you at home
The EP ends on this peaceful, optimistic note, indicating that Allen’s reached “the other side” of his struggles and found a life that’s meaningful and joyful. That’s something to celebrate with or without a pandemic (but even more so with!).
Cole Allen performs frequently in and around Rochester, Minnesota, so be sure to check him out if you’re in the area!
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the main music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym @taberkeley!
