Casey Stratton March 2005 By: Marco Nieves

All I could muster to say after listening to every song in Casey Stratton's Standing At The Edge was "finally," too floored to speak much, but too astounded not to honor this music with a word of flattery. Casey defies the laws of singing with his malleable voice that borders on androgyny. Not the type of androgyny that would confuse and deter the listener that can't understand how a man can reach these notes and still sound dauntless, but a stupefying ability that will render one helpless and addicted to such atypical deliverance. And it is about time.

Musically it would fall under the category of 'piano-pop,' but in reality Standing At The Edge oversteps all those lines. Many artists suffer from committing the blunder of making songs that drag on to an unsteady plane by maintaining an album's worth of monotonous and safe sounds. Casey's music seeks what is deeper, like any artist with throbbing veins that flow with creativity, there is an intensity behind his words and the sinewy electricity that comes out of his throat and into our ears. His art, a method of self-sustenance and growth, chronicles and comes to terms with the bedlam that love can lay upon us. Love, while being the most monumental emotion, can be an abundant gift or utter havok, both sides blueprints of raw inspiration. Outstanding tracks include the meteoric and lacerating Blood about avenging past pain, the arresting Cellophane unfolding his disappointment and heartbreak, the pleasantly catchy House of Jupiter and Bloom, a song veiled by melancholiness and dolorous desire to love unconditionally and forever. The album goes on and the course keeps getting more and more colorful, fascinating and exquisite. As a singer, he makes ravenous consequence sound ethereal and worth the pang.

Unfortunately, Casey, as many other artists, has suffered from the detractors that run the music business and their goals to sell inertial artists. But with his voice, unpretentious lyrics and intrinsic feracity, Standing At The Edge is still remarkable as an effervescent album that carries every tool necessary to build a forceful platoon that will defend and establish the artist as a promising creator, a bouyant performer and talented man.

http://www.caseystratton.com