Wyatt Edmunds
If I Don’t Try
This fun little EP appeared in my in box a few months ago, but I’ve listened through a several times and can report Wyatt Edmundson offers the sort of singer-songwriter chops needed to reach the charts. Edmundson hails from Montgomery, Alabama and now lives in Nashville. He raised the scratch for this self-release album from friends and admirers, and its money well spent. Edmunds’ voice fits his music and his music fits all the timeless talking points of love and loneliness.
“Amber” gives us a down-tempo love song; his girlfriend is far away and may not be back. Perhaps he’ll get over it, but it’s not clear if his endpoint is happiness. “Room For Two” reflects on the timeless county theme of picking up a woman after a few beers. Maybe they’ll go down to the lake, and maybe they won’t but dang it, he tried. “You Said It, I Meant it” opens with a simple melody and a missing lover. She may be gone, but he’s singing as hard as he can to get her back. The line he signs in the lyric doesn’t exactly match the title, but it’s close enough for a county song. Now we return to the water’s edge in “Lovers Lake.” Here Edmundson sings about it in the third person as he seems to wait for a woman dating another man to visit him. We wrap up with the title track. “If I Don’t Try” draws a few incipient tears, he’s planning his move for tonight and maybe he’ll get lucky. It seems there’s a story arc here, but I’m not in love with the ordering of these tracks. Still, each lyric comes from the heart, and I think this guy has legs.
