Always by Paul Beladino

Songwriter. Frontman. Multi-instrumentalist. Engineer. Producer. Paul Beladino plays all the parts on Always, a debut album that showcases not only the influences of a musician raised on American rock & roll, British pop, California country, and all points between, but also the wide-ranging abilities of a one-man band.

"I'm a nostalgia junkie," says Beladino, who spent part of his childhood traveling across New York as a championship-winning hockey player. "When you play travel hockey, it's similar to touring: you're in the car all day, you play for a crowd, and then you drive home afterward. It was during the car rides that my parents showed me all the music I still love." Those nighttime drives through the New York suburbs felt like masterclasses in music appreciation, the FM radio dial turned up, the vehicle filled with classic hits by the Beach Boys, Oasis, the Beatles, and Led Zeppelin. Years later, long after Beladino hung up his skates for good, the thrill of those music-filled road trips remained.

"When I'm making music now," he says, "I'm really just chasing that feeling of driving around with my parents and listening to the radio."

Always breathes new into that childhood soundtrack, creating a 21st century sound out of Beladino's old-school influences. There are power-pop anthems, rock juggernauts, and funky R&B workouts, all of them written, performed, and recorded entirely by Beladino. A musical chameleon, he shifts his perspective with each song, highlighting some new instinct or instrument at every turn. He's a piano-playing pop songwriter on "If This Ends Tomorrow," channeling the influence of Elton John and Todd Rundgren while layering his melodies with stacks of vocal harmony. He's a riff-ready rocker on "Strat-O-Sphere," a song whose amped-up crunch nods to acts like Queens of the Stone Age and The Stooges. "Heat Lightning" channels The Eagles' peaceful easy pocket as well as Dire Straits' unforced cool, while "Take You Alive" roots itself in the swampy swagger of Little Feat and the Grateful Dead. It's a diverse sound — one that uses Beladino's influences as a springboard for something new — and it's glued together by his love of groove, guitar, and genuine hooks.

"It's all about alchemy," he says. "I'm taking different elements and putting them together to make something new. A lot of people these days don't listen to just one kind of music. We listen to everything. I just want to meld all of it together."

The result is a record that balances technical ability with singable songs and sheer listenability. Beladino is a musician's musician — a modern-day guitar hero who began gigging in the New York City suburbs at 11 years old, played the Warped Tour as a teenager, and demoed guitars for icons like Mark Knopfler and Steve Miller while working at the legendary instrument shop Rudy's Music — but he knows the value of a great melody, as well. On songs like the album's title track, he finds the middle ground between those two bookends. There's plenty of top-tier musicianship throughout, but Always is an album for everyone, not just the virtuosos who claim Beladino as one of their own.

"If I'm going to go deep into an extended jam, there better be a hooky chorus on the other side of it," he explains. "That's the gap I've always tried to bridge. Those are the two worlds I'm trying to marry."

It's never too late to reintroduce yourself. After years of collaborative projects and in-demand sideman work, Paul Beladino has turned a new page. Always is the start of a new story altogether, one where he isn't just a lead guitar player, or a piano-pounding singer/songwriter, or a drummer, or a producer capable of referencing — and refashioning — a half-century's worth of classic sounds. Here, he's all of those things, and he's never defined his ambition, or his ability, so clearly before.

Multi-Instrumentalist, Singer, Songwriter, and Producer from Peekskill, NY.