Hydr8 (Gabriel Vasichek)'s album "Empower Now" (with video)

Gabe Vasichek's new album "Empower Now," offers a collection of dense, unique and worldly songs.

The first thing to hit me was the diversity from track to track.

It's almost as if each song is a room decorated differently but with enough similar items that you know it belongs to the same person.

 Some tracks, such as the first one, even feels as if it's two songs in one. If we're using the house analogy, the intro to the first track is the porch that leads directly into the rest of the home.  

The intro starts with Didgeri-Dan's didgeridoo playing. Brothers Dan and Gabe have been known to jam out at a few open mic nights bringing something that's unlike anything else, maybe anywhere.

After about a minute, the song switches gears and gets into the main riff that Gabe sings over. It's memorable and funky.

Michael Gilboe, who produced the album at his Copperhead Production Studio, has created multiple layers in each of the songs that all seem to fit together.

Gabriel Vasichek

The didgeridoo returns for several more of the tracks, as does vocals from Nikki Brown, who easily has been one of my favorite performers to hear sing at open mic.

Even if you're not into the rest of the songs, hearing Nikki sing is worth getting the album alone. Like Gabe told me during our chat last week about the album, "It's sweet like honey."

She sings alone on "Moving Forward," and with Gabe on "Blue Skies and a Rainy Day."

Another highlights for me was on "Send Me Back Home," during the chorus where the backing music changes dramatically to an almost march-like beat. It's chillingly effective. The bridge gives the track a nice touch, also.

Finally, everything about "So Many Ripples" makes me giddy inside. It might be my favorite track aside from "Moving Forward."

While there's a lot to like here, every album has it's flaws -- this one included.

Gabe and I talked about this in my Tribune article, which you can read here, about how the album doesn't shy away from it's weaknesses. We talked a lot about how if you never do something out of fear of missing perfection, you'll never achieve anything.

With that in mind, Gabe's vocal range is rather small. He's a great songwriter and performer, but he's never going to hit the high notes that stretch a voice's range. He's also a little off key in a few tracks.  I think the most pronounced instance is on his duet with Nikki mostly because she's singing in one key and while Gabe is almost in that key, it's a LITTLE off. It's still a good track but that pitch difference is noticeable.

Dan and Gabe Vaishcek at a recent open mic. 

One also could argue that the album's density is too dense.

I happen to like it, though. I think it gives the album a real meaty sound that offers listeners some exotic flavors.

If you're looking for an album that has one concept or one sound with variations of that sound, this might not be the one for you, though.

 I think that diversity speaks to the type of performer Gabe is, though, so I have no problems with it.

 If anything I would say it makes trying to explain what kind of music it is difficult. That's not a bad thing, though, as you just really have to listen to it to understand.

At the end of the day, the album has many tracks that seep into your consciousness. Upon listening to them I can still hear them in my head. Plus, given that Gabe is such a literary songwriter, I'm sure each song has layers of meaning I might not get unless I listen to it again and again.

I would have loved to hear more of Gabe's insanely amazing throat singing. He gives us tastes of it on a few songs, but I would have loved to hear him just rip into it for a full track or two.

If you enjoy big sounds with thoughtful lyrics, this album is for you. Gabe's an intelligent performer who takes his songwriting/singing and playing seriously. He and Gilboe assembled a strong cast of local talent around him.

This album's rooms all come alive and are well worth visiting.

To order the album, visit www.hydr8music.com.