Red Jacket - 'Perfect Timing'

Merging dynamic acoustic piano, evolving vocals, and modern electronic textures, Perfect Timing is the excellent fourth studio record from Toronto-based artist Dylan Wilson-Rogers, performing as Red Jacket. This self-produced project navigates a journey toward inner tranquility amidst the friction of isolation.

Opening track “Siddhartha” artfully intrigues with an initial propulsion of hectic piano, swelling effervescence, and “wish I was” vocal sentiments. The piano work assumes a brisker, melodic quality — exciting in its stop-start motion as river-flowing and sky-black lyrical scene-setting moves into heartfelt strings. The album delights in its colorful, momentum-filled productions, quickly apparent with “Siddhartha.” The ensuing “The Speed of Light” casts a hypnotic spell, its reckoning with a “truth that I don’t wanna see” melding with crunching guitars and enveloping keys for a stellar indietronica sound.

Another album highlight, “The Girl from the Subway Line” continues the album’s knack for riveting piano work, here set amidst a magnetic vocal presence whose stream-of-conscious feeling reminds fondly of a cross between The Walkmen and The Strokes, the former lovably reminiscent in the “lives on the subway line” vocal repetition. In the more introspective realm, “In a Little While” dazzles in its evolution from stately piano-set balladry to accordion-like flair and “no one to hold me” laments, again succeeding with a contemplative, heart-on-sleeve allure. Abundant in quality songwriting, Perfect Timing is a standout album from Red Jacket.