Jacob Tell – Stolen Car: Meet Americana’s Tenderest Aural Heartbreaker –

If Neil Young drifted into more spacey territory, he would have hits like Jacob Tell’s Stolen Car in his discography. The tenderly cosmic, acoustic-guitar-driven single resounds in the simplicity of its arrangement, allowing each chord change, vocal lift and instrumental swell to feel deliberately exposed

The sustain-soaked, accordant strummed chords occasionally meet chamber-pop instrumentation and glows of gospel timbre as Tell shines through him knowing exactly where to place his vibrato notes, crossing over into Bowie’s influential legacy before the sombre blues guitar solo arrives. That solo approaches the delicate pacing of the single as tentatively as possible; its humbled notes make you lean in to truly appreciate them and the vintage amplification that projects them.

Based in Los Angeles, Tell has already built a sharply defined independent catalogue with Hard To Be Human, his critically praised first studio album, and Under The Influence, an all-covers EP honouring the singer-songwriters who shaped him. Now, as he records Someone To Cry To with producer Don Douglass, Stolen Car points towards something more intimate, closer to confession than commentary.

There is something affectingly resolute about the way Tell scribes his timeless sonic signature; there is no sense that he is appropriating aural history, only an exhibition of how this is how his soul takes creative form. He’s the kind of artist capable of leaving your soul warmer, fuller, and lighter.

Stolen Car is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast